FL33t Foxes- H3lplessness Blu3s (2011) MP3 & FLAC

"I was raised up believing I was somehow unique, like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes."

While a cursory listen to the Fleet Foxes' long-awaited and much-delayed follow-up to their brilliant debut album suggests that not much has changed in terms of the band's sonic approach, those who dig beneath the ornate surface of Helplessness Blues will discover a journey into darker, often existential, territory. With Phil Ek once again manning the production booth, Fleet Foxes inhabit an even more expansive reverb-drenched soundscape than before, lending both a bottomless and timeless feel to their meticulously constructed baroque-folk compositions. Whereas their debut album tended to be a bit abstract lyrically (which put a lot of responsibility on the music itself to convey the album's emotional power), Helplessness Blues finds Robin Pecknold venturing into singer-songwriter territory; for example, in "Blue-Spotted Tail," Pecknold ponders humankind's greatest yet utterly unanswerable question: "Why in the night sky are the lights on?"  On "Helplessness Blues," one of the most powerful songs the Fleet Foxes have yet recorded, a similarly reflective existential theme emerges, as Pecknold peels away the illusions we cling to in order to give a vestige of form to our lives in the face of inconceivable randomness: "If I know only one thing, it's that everything I see of the world outside is so inconceivable, often I barely can speak."  While Helplessness Blues does depart occasionally from the soaring harmonies that have become the band's trademark (there are several tracks with Pecknold playing lone folk troubadour), overall, their sophomore album manages to improve on one of the best debut albums in recent memory. Go out and support this band.

FL33t Foxes- S/T EP (2006) MP3 & FLAC

"Beneath the icicle tusk, you and me among the flattering dusk."

Two years before the release of their debut LP for Sub-Pop, Fleet Foxes issued an eponymous self-released EP, which was only distributed in the Seattle area. Produced by Seattle music scene veteran Phil Ek, the sound of Fleet Foxes will come as a surprise to those who have only heard their more recent work. While Robin Pecknold's vocals only occasionally flash with the brilliance that marks the later Sub-Pop recordings, the overall sound seems a little more rough-hewn and Jazz inflected. One of the obvious highlights is "Icicle Tusk," which is the only song that attempts the kind of vocal harmonizing that would soon become their trademark. However, the true gem here is "Anyone Who's Anyone" with its spaghetti-western guitar lick and charging energy; it is a worthy precursor to what came next.

FL33t Foxes- Sun Gi@nt EP (2008) / S/T (2008) MP3 & FLAC

"Penniless and tired with your hair grown long, I was looking at you there, and your face looked wrong."

Art is often, if not always, some form of bricolage, a tapestry woven using various and sundry materials that are collectively transformed into something new. I mention this because Fleet Foxes epitomize the artistic alchemy that can occur when familiar things are taken up and re-contextualized. An obvious contemporary touchstone for this band's sound would be My Morning Jacket, and while vocally, Robin Pecknold and Jim James wander through similar ornately desolate canyons of reverb (though James has been known to take these excursions to extremes), these bands pursue very different muses. What sets Fleet Foxes apart from the Indie pack is the timelessness of their sound and the often stunning vocal harmonies that can't help but recall, in a slightly refracted way, the early albums of Crosby, Stills & Nash. A perfect example of this is "Mykonos" from the Sun Giant EP; with its vaguely Hellenic feel coupled with Pecknold's backwoods vocal delivery and a seemingly looped acoustic guitar arpeggio, the song is already quite memorable in a quirky way, but once the bridge comes around with its transcendent vocal harmonies and classic rock flourishes, it simply sounds universal. Likewise, on "White Winter Hymnal" from the debut LP, Fleet Foxes seamlessly sew together elements of the Appalachian and British folk traditions, which, when punctuated with their wide-eyed vocal harmonies, creates something that sounds as if it could have been written any time within the past 150 years. Forget the hype and its inevitable backlash; this is simply gorgeous music created by some extremely gifted young musicians who have tapped into something both bittersweetly familiar and darkly beautiful.

Fleet Foxes- "Blue Ridge Mountains" (2008) Live, Grand Palais, Paris

You know a band is talented when a singer like J. Tillman can be relegated to drums: