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| Fleet Foxes | 
 enlarge | Artist: Fleet Foxes
Label: Sub Pop
Category: Music
List Price: $13.98
Buy New: $9.86
You Save: $4.12 (29%)
New (35) Used (6) from $9.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  41 reviews
Sales Rank: 26
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 70777
UPC: 098787077728
EAN: 0098787077728
ASIN: B0017R5UAA
Release Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW Factory Sealed - Ready to be shipped within 24 hrs from California - Average 5 workdays delivery time - Excellent customer service - Buy with confidence!
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| Tracks:
| • | Sun it Rises | | • | White Winter Hymnal | | • | Ragged Wood | | • | Tiger Mountain Peasant Song | | • | Quiet Houses | | • | He Doesn't Know Why | | • | Heard Them Stirring | | • | Your Protector | | • | Meadowlarks | | • | Blue Ridge Mountains | | • | Oliver James |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk
It's now twenty years since grunge emerged from then culturally isolated Seattle and Fleet Foxes, the eponymous debut album from the city's latest heroes, demonstrates just how much American independent rock has mutated in that time. The five young members of Fleet Foxes make up a very different sort of rock band, describing their own music as "baroque harmonic pop jams". Even that understates the depths of the quintet's effortless vocal harmonies and gently woozy, folky feel. Of their contemporaries only the enigmatic Midlake and My Morning Jacket at their most fragile come close, but neither could have cooked up the Beach Boys spiritual of "White Winter Hymnal" or its more powerful companion piece "Ragged Wood". In fact Fleet Foxes happily admit to aspiring to an earlier tradition--not just obvious antecedents like the Byrds, the Association, Neil Young and, especially, David Crosby's famously unfocussed solo album If Only I Could Remember My Name but ancient English folk songs and their later American descendents. All were hunted and gathered from the internet--songwriters Robin Pecknold and Skye Skjelset are barely in their twenties. Add a host of unlikely instruments and the results are stunning, the complete antithesis of mainstream stadium indie that has followed Arcade Fire. Still, the cover features a Bruegel painting of peasants that might have graced any Black Sabbath sleeve. In that way at least Fleet Foxes salute a local tradition. -—Steve Jelbert
Product Description
Seattle's Fleet Foxes traffic in baroque harmonic pop. They draw influences from the traditions of folk, pop, choral, gospel, sacred harp singing, West Coast music, traditional music from Ireland to Japan, film scores, and their NW peers. The subject matter ranges from the natural world and familial bonds to bygone loves and stone cold graves.
Album Description
2008 album from this Seattle based quintet. Fleet Foxes are, for lack of an imminently more marketable descriptor, a group trafficking in baroque harmonic pop. And the joy they derive in doing so is palpable. We feel it too. They are, self-described, not much of a rock band. With the help of credit cards, minimum wages, tip money, friends and family, Fleet Foxes crafted their first demo, and subsequently the Sun Giant EP and this debut full-length album, with family friend Phil Ek manning the rudder. Drawing influence from the traditions of folk music, pop, choral music and gospel, sacred harp singing, West Coast music, traditional music from Ireland to Japan, film scores, and their NW peers, Fleet Foxes ranges in subject matter from the natural world and familial bonds to bygone loves and stone cold graves.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 36 more reviews...
 I dont know any better June 16, 2008
32 out of 41 found this review helpful
So I was passing through one day and noticed the Sun Giant cover art by Fleet Foxes on Amazon. I was fixated by it. Yeh sure, dont judge an album by its cover art, but I looked at that spectacular view with the colossal architecture in the background and thought, I want to be there... If they can put me in that picture for just one track... Im bought. The opener does just that... and the single 'Mykonos' is a breathtaking dreamscape of accessible melody.
So, yeh Pitchfork and all the other high brow publications can give a handful of important reasons why this album is worth its weight in gold... but I was more interested in the melodies. For me, Fleet Foxes is most glorious when it strikes that harmonious chord. When all those exotic instruments materialize a blissful tune. Tracks like 'Tiger Mountain Peasant Song", "He doesnt Know Why", "Your Protector" "Oliver JAmes".
And maybe thats inferior of me to look at it this way. But maybe thats why 'Tv on the Radio's' so called most important album of the year - (Cookie Mountain), wasn't collectively anyones' favorite album of the year (bar a few gorgeous tracks). Melody is underrated. And in my opinion Fleet Foxes' debut album lacks that melodic cohesion. It has the resources, the spirit and the know how, but it lacks that innate musical melody to make it a 5 star album.
Even the tracks I mention suffer from awkward moments of cheap thrills. For example, the latter half of "He doesn't know why" just ends up going through the motions, for the sake of completion.
A brilliant first half of whimsical phrasing is finished off with a generic and passive ...."There's nothing .. I can ... doo" which just deflates a very beautiful and engaging piece of music.
How does that go unnoticed. I dont know... but the song deserves a better chorus line. It deserved more attention.
Of course I expect to get slammed for this.
 Hold me dear, into the night June 4, 2008
23 out of 25 found this review helpful
The Fleet Foxes are a rock band that sounds like no other -- imagine a pastoral choir overwhelming a sweeping folk-rock band, in the middle of a sunlit forest in the spring.
That's about the sound of the Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut album -- it's a stream of lush, jangly folk pop, edged with a touch of baroque and country-rock. While their "Sun Giant" EP was an excellent introduction, it's nothing compared to the rough-edged grandeur of the full-length album, with its glorious instrumentation and vivid lyricism.
The only really offputting part of the album is the opening five seconds, when an off-key chorale sings, "Reeeeed squirrel in the morning/Reeeeeeeed squirrel in the evening..."
Then the song suddenly melts into a gentle acoustic guitar shimmering with keyboard. "The sun rises, over my head/Hold me dear, into the night/Sun it will rise soon in the morn..." Robin Pecknold sings with all the solemnity of a choirboy. His voice soars over the steelier riffs and thumping drums, only to settle down with, "The sun rising, dangling there/Golden and fair, in the sky..."
Wow. When an intro is that lovely, just imagine what the songs that follow are going to be like.
In this case, it's the shifting folky "White Winter Hymnal," with its kettle drums and beautiful campfire harmonies ("I was following... I was following... I was following the pack/all swallowed in their coats/with scarves of red tied 'round their throats"), followed by the endearingly energetic rocker "Ragged Wood" ("You should come back home/back on your own now!").
It gets no less endearing after that: Gentle bluesy ballads, jangly folk-pop with lots of squiggly mellotron, sweeping pop chorales, bouncy countryish rockers with lots of intertwined guitars. Things get quieter near the end -- "Fleet Foxes" ends with a trio of lower-key, folkier ballads, sometimes with nothing more than Pecknold's voice and a guitar.
There's something very warm and welcoming about the Fleet Foxes' music, and there's hardly a song on their self-titled album that doesn't contain that sunniness. And though the bittersweet songs focus on the usual topics -- family, love, lost friends -- there's a strong feeling of pastoral beauty, especially since they're sprinkled with meadowlarks, wood-women, "quivering forests," Tennessee and grassy graves.
In fact, the lyrics are crammed with vivid ("And, Michael, you would fall/and turn the white snow red as strawberries") and striking language ("I hold a cornucopia and a golden crown"). At times, the band's lyrics are pure poetry ("Wanderers this morning came by/Where did they go?/Graceful in the morning light/To banner fair/To follow you softly/In the cold mountain air...").
These songs are wrapped in lush melodies of striking music, which happily swirl together folk, classic earthy rock, pop, baroque and a bit of country. And an coustic guitar is the lead instrument here; sometimes it's all by itself, and sometimes it's intertwined with a smooth mix of other instruments -- hollow drums, rippling mellotron, steely guitar, and a hint of harp being plucked somewhere.
And finally there's Robin Pecknold. He sounds a little off-key in the spare ballads, but in the more complex songs he sounds sweet, strong and truly beautiful, especially when he does that soaring thing. And I have to say, I'm a sucker for the band's sunny chorale sound -- the harmonies really make those melodies sound exquisite.
The Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut is one of the best albums I've heard all year, with its blend of styles and bittersweetly lovely songs. Haunting and truly lovely.
Amazing June 4, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Witness Fleet Foxes at their best. Every track is like a piece of art in some shape or form- each melody- hauntingly beautiful and unique; needless to say it will stick with you. In my opinion, this is the best album of 2008 thus far. Do yourself a favor, buy the album and support this magnificent group of artists.
consistently strong album June 10, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Great modern pop offering with a spiritual feel. Personal and unpretentious. Hints of Talking Heads, Kingston Trio, and the latest Euro power pop bands. Not just one or two good singles, but an overall great album that is consistently uplifting and entertaining throughout.
Nice ingredients, but mix doesn't ensure greatness June 24, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Over the years, music critics, (who by their nature have to push something & are always looking to be at the cutting edge and wanting to discover the next big thing), attach themselves to new music that contains several unique ingredients but when the whole product is stirred and readied for listening, something larger like consistent melodies are missing. Fleet Foxes seems to fall into this jar. There are some wonderful harmonic moments, baroque & otherwise, but as a whole this cd leaves only a mediocre taste, and a desire for something more inspiring and listenable.
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