~by Gabe McBride
Fleet Foxes' 2008 self-titled debut and Sun Giant EP were bona fide instant classics. The first music by front man Robin Pecknold and crew was a left-field take on wintery hippy folk, injected with icy Brian Wilson styled harmonies and sophisticated instrumentation. Pecknold, who was just a few rotations around the sun removed from his teen years at the time, was a thoughtful songwriter, and the band appeared to value intricacy and exploration, something belied by the youth of those involved. Fleet Foxes proved to be a commercial and especially critical success, landing on the top of several year-end lists, and, admittedly, remains in my current iPod rotation to this day.
So, three years later, we have Helplessness Blues, the much anticipated follow up by this band of less than merry nouveau hippies, and as is often the case, it fails to live up to high standards set by its predecessors. This, I guess, makes things sound more dire than I mean for them to. Singles from Helplessness Blues, released during the lead up to the album-release proper, ‘Grown Ocean’ in particular, showed the band expanding their already ambitious sonic pallet and opening up the doors on their hermetic song structures. And the title of the album is something of a misnomer, as Pecknold engages in a little bit of mid 20’s navel gazing, something I usually have little patience for. Fortunately, the tone of the album is overwhelmingly positive, as Pecknold, once again mature beyond his years, seems to understand that his successes enable him to aspire to more than rock stardom, more than drugs, partying, and women. Which is inspiring in and of itself, even if, as implied in the album’s title, he is not sure what he should do with his ability to influence and offer himself to a bigger purpose. Happily, he steers clear of the tired political and phony baloney spirituality proffered by many of his artistic brethren, even as it is apparent that he is not sure what he should be aspiring to.
Where Helplessness Blues falls somewhat short of the 2008 releases is in its submission to convention. Reportedly, Pecknold recorded and then ditched a whole other album’s worth of material, as he was left unsatisfied with the results. But, again, I wind up qualifying my criticism. The album sags a bit in the middle, with a stretch of primarily acoustic folk tracks, although this isn’t so much a lack of quality songs, (they remain consistently beautiful) as much as it is a sequencing problem. Also, the band has more or less abandoned the guitar and piano interludes that characterized so much of Fleet Foxes. There is a free/jazz saxophone explosion at the end of ‘The Shrine/An Argument’, which hints at the previous works’ adventurousness, but lacks the organic boundary-hopping feel that made Fleet Foxes so endearing. So where does that leave my final assessment? I really am not sure. There are times listening to the album that I am genuinely disappointed and others in which I feel like I really have nothing to complain about. Helplessness Blues is a lush, open work, which hints at future greatness, rather than embodying it.
For Fans of: The Band, Wilco, Lower Dens
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