There's sweeping and then there's sweeping. There's the one with the broom that you tend to on your porch and then there's the kind that lifts you off your feet and transports you somewhere and that's kind of where Fleet Foxes comes into play. Their new album Helplessness Blues transports us back to when Simon and Garfield were the very definition of folk music and they were repeatedly crossing bridges over troubled water. Much like Simon and Garfunkel, Fleet Foxes sound terminally depressed and far, far away from the maddening crowd.
Much of Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues is intimate sounding and quiet but grandiose in design. The songs are a rich pastoral tapestry of gently plucked guitars, harmonic vocal textures, and a slightly weirded out sense of humor. Album opener, "Montezuma," is absolutely heart breakingly epic and sets the tone upfront for Helplessness Blues but it's so far removed from pop music that you'll have difficulty remembering what you heard. Much of the album is just like that; awfully gorgeous but difficult to retain. None the less, Helplessness Blues is worth a listen and maybe two. It's an intriguing record that made me reconsider my views on folk music simply because of its massive beauty. That being said, I'm still not sure it's something I would listen to repeatedly.
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