Perhaps “helpless” is the best way to describe the last few years for fans of Seattle-based indie-folk group Fleet Foxes. While the band’s self-titled first record was a critical darling that rose to many esteemed blog and magazine short lists for the 2008 album of the year, it hasn’t released anything since.
Now, after three long years, Fleet Foxes has returned with its sophomore effort, Helplessness Blues. The new conundrum for fans is to decide whether the record was worth the wait. A quieter, even more organic affair than the eponymous debut, Helplessness Blues turns away from the raw 1960s pop songcraft in favor of a matured, earthier sound.
Sure, plenty of tracks are drenched in that familiar My Morning Jacket-style reverb, but the record’s true focal point is the comparison between harmonized voices and acoustic guitar instrumentation. Though Fleet Foxes featured plenty of this, it wasn’t quite as focused as the pop-minstrel rambles of the new album.
Take “Lorelai,” a swaying, somewhat mysterious little tune led by acoustic guitar plucking and lead singer Robin Pecknold’s high, smooth voice.
On first listen, the song’s eccentricities, from the odd chord progressions to extensive yet reserved instrumentation, including bassoons and the album’s rare electric guitar, can make the record feel like some sort of lost recording by old progressive folk bands like Renaissance or even later Jethro Tull.
However, deeper listens reveal that most of these tracks are just pop songs with added bells and whistles — sometimes literally. Many acts that try to pump up their songs with complex instrumentation often come off as overwrought, but Fleet Foxes’ succinct and restrained use of a wide range of sounds over the course of the 50-minute album makes every extra sound seem integral.
The violin on “Bedouin Dress” highlights the mood of the song perfectly, one of many supped-up roadside gypsy jams that pervade the album. What this song does, like most on the record, is create a very particular, purposeful feeling of old-world mystery without losing the sense of melody that made Fleet Foxes popular in the first place.
This mood holds well over the course of album, always simmering below the surface until “Grown Ocean,” a stomping crescendo of acoustic and electric instrumentation that closes out the album on a high note. In some ways, this is opposite of Fleet Foxes, which had multiple crescendo points over the course of the record and ended quietly.
Both structural styles work, if only to different ends. Helplessness Blues is definitely more of a quiet listening album. It’s not a lonely record, but simply one that is best experienced on a good pair of headphones by oneself.
That being said, there are some moments when the additions approach experimentation more than stoic songwriting, such as “The Shrine / An Argument,” a disturbing eight-minute folk piece that, for the most part, is quite interesting, particularly Pecknold’s stirring vocals at the song’s outset and his affecting lyrics about lost love and wishing wells.
The second half of the track is a subdued study in mood and tone that, while interesting, simply goes on a bit too long. This doesn’t detract from the album overall — it simply makes the song feel a bit too open-ended.
Still, with absorbing songs like the title track or the oddly structured “The Plains / Bitter Dancer,” Helplessness Blues is an enthralling listen from a band that clearly takes great care in each track it produces.
It may have taken three years of relative silence, but Fleet Foxes has made a fairly triumphant return to popular music.
RATING: 4 stars out of 5
berman@umdbk.com
