Helplessness Blues

Fleet Foxes | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 3, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2011
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sub Pop
• ASIN: B004LL1HM4
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (141 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,914 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #90 in Music > Indie Music > Rock > General

Editorial Reviews

Review

" ...a triumphant follow-up to a blockbuster debut." - Best New Music, 8.8 out of 10 --Pitchfork

"The year's most beautiful album." - 9 out of 10 (May, 2011) --Spin

"dazzling" - 4 Stars --Rolling Stone

Product Description

Fleet Foxes are from Seattle and the members of the band are Robin Pecknold, Skye Skjelset, Josh Tillman, Casey Wescott, Christian Wargo, and Morgan Henderson. The first Fleet Foxes album (Fleet Foxes) was released on Sub Pop in 2008, and though the band s intention was to record a new album in the 6-8 months following its release, the reception of the record was such that Fleet Foxes found themselves very busy, touring consistently through the end of 2009.

Engineered and mixed by Phil Ek and co-produced by Phil and the band, the new Fleet Foxes record is called Helplessness Blues. Recording for Helplessness Blues began in April 2010 at Dreamland Recording in Woodstock, NY and continued off and on through November of that same year back in Seattle at numerous studios, including Bear Creek, Reciprocal Recording and Avast. Like very nearly every worthwhile thing, making this album was not easy; it was a difficult second album to make. Drawing inspiration from folk/rock from about 1965 to 1973, and Van Morrison s Astral Weeks in particular, Helplessness Blues sees Fleet Foxes heighten and extend themselves, adding instrumentation (clarinet, the music box, pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, Tibetan singing bowls, vibraphone, etc., along with more traditional band instrumentation), with a focus on clear, direct lyrics, and an emphasis on group vocal harmonies. We have it on good authority that the album is called Helplessness Blues for at least a couple of reasons. One, it's kind of a funny title. Secondly, one of the prevailing themes of the album is the struggle between who you are and who you want to be or who you want to end up, and how sometimes you are the only thing getting in the way of that.

Having heard Helplessness Blues, we mean to get out of its way.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 88 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fleet Foxes - The flashbulb moment for American music in 2011 May 3, 2011

By Red on Black TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:MP3 Music

Something remarkable is going on here and its great to watch and listen. Two observations to start with, if as suggested in the music press that Fleet Foxes main man Robin Pecknold has poured his heart and soul into their second album "Helplessness blues" it has paid off and this not only equals their great debut but surpasses it. The second reflection is that New Musical Express has given this album a paltry two stars in a hideously awful review from an increasingly irrelevant music magazine. This in itself should encourage you to buy it since "Helplessness blues" is a triumphant classic and while its stays firmly within the orbit of harmony heavy folk rock of "Ragged Wood" it marks a substantial and mature progression for this Seattle band. This is particularly pronounced in terms of Pecknold's songwriting skills which take off into the stratosphere and the band produce some of the greatest soaring harmony singing this side of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends" and the great debut by Crosby, Stills and Nash.

Start with the brilliant title track. This song is divided into two parts firstly a introspective set of lyrics by Pecknold leads to a vocal tour de force which at 2.58 then moves into a sublime Fleet Foxes harmony workout. It is easily one of the best songs released this year but is matched on the album but equally bold contributions. "Sim Sala Bim" is delightful haunting folk song which splits into two parts with the CSN influence especially pronounced in its forceful second part. The reflective opener "Montezuma" sees Pecknold in a pensive mood questioning, "So now I am older/Than my mother and father/, When they had their daughter/Now what does that say about me" over almost warm religious style harmonies.... It contrasts with the joyous "Battery Kinzie" probably the song that could have sat most happily on their debut. The albums centerpieces are two episodic songs of which first up is "The Plains/Bitter Dancer" a six minute journey containing some of the albums best harmonies and the albums longest track "The Shrine/An argument" a sort of baroque "Paranoid Android' with a powerful vocal by Pecknold which takes us on a journey from folk to a wig out free jazz conclusion. It is stirring perfection and will take audiences by storm on the forthcoming UK tour.

Other highlights include "Lorelai" which owes a huge debt to one of Dylan's best but not always most heralded songs "4th Time Round" from "Blonde on Blonde". Then there is the intriguing instrumental "Cascades", the slightly jazzy "Bedouin Dress" and two of the most gorgeous songs Pecknold has penned. First the lush "Something to admire" and the truly sublime sparse acoustics of "Blue Spotted Tail" where we can forgive Pecknold's "hippy" affectations for the wonderful sweet yearning which underpins it. The whole thing is topped off with the cherry on the cake that is "Grown Ocean" which was the highlight of the set they performed on Jools Holland with Pecknold's voice cracking as the songs pace picked up and surged. It starts with him announcing "In that dream I'm as old as the mountains/Still is starlight reflected in fountains/Children grown on the edge of the ocean/Kept like jewellery kept with devotion". It builds to a massive acoustic crescendo with the band firing on all cylinders and concludes with a gentle verse.

It is a fitting ending to an album, which sees the band radically redefine as oppose to reinvent their sound, but by doing so build on the brilliance of their debut and actually "outpunch" it. This album is a flashbulb moment for music in 2011. It sets down an American benchmark for others to aspire towards, in the same way that PJ Harvey's "Let England Shake" has done in the UK. God knows how the Fleet Foxes follow this album (although we thought that after "Ragged Wood" and the "Sun Giant EP") for as it stands "Helplessness Blues" is the sound of rock music redemption. Read more ›

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It's nice when a band stays true to it's sound May 3, 2011

By A. Halfstar

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

It seems to me like most bands either try to change too much with their second album, and in the process lose their sound, or they just rehash the first album and reveal themselves as one-trick ponies. Fleet Foxes do neither of these things. This album is different, but not too different. Lyrically, the focus has changed from interpersonal relationships and family to introspection and society...so their moving inward and outward at the same time. These guys are all improving as musicians. This material is more complex and the performances are closer to perfect. The singing and drums are especially tight. Overall, it's what you'd expect if you've been listening to these guys for a few years, and if you've enjoyed their other stuff than you will probably like this. My only complaint is that some of the arrangements may be too complex and the soundscape becomes too saturated at times. That's not enough to keep me from giving it a 5-star rating though. Enjoy!

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 stars... Excellent sophomore album May 3, 2011

By Paul Allaer TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

Fleet Foxes seemingly came out of nowhere in 2008 with the promising "Sun Giant" EP, followed later in the year with their self-titled album, which immediately won critical acclaim. After lots of touring and a botched attempt to record a new album (the band scrapped the first recording sessions), now finally comes the highly anticipated second album.

"Helplessness Blues" (12 tracks; 50 min.) is no radical departure from the first album, sounding ever more gorgeous, if anything. Singer-songwriter Robin Pecknold continues to explore the sounds of spaceous folk-rock, with clear influences from Simon and Garfunkel, and the intrecate vocal interplay (reminicent of, say, the Beach Boys) are even more in the forefront than on the debut album. All of of this is a good thing. The album kicks off with a gentle "Montezuma" and great tracks follow one after another. It is clear that Pecknold has thrown his heart and soul into making this album. Special mention goes to track 5, "The Plains/Bitter Dancer", which is really several songs into one track, but it works just beautiful. The title track follows, and is of course nothing "blues"-like, but in the ache that the song brings about. A short instrumental "The Gascades" is the bridge into the second half of the album. "Lorelai" is a sunny love-song. It eventually leads to track 11 "Blue Spotted Tail", just Pecknold solo on acoustic guitar, and it would be a fine album closer in my book. But it is followed by one more track "Grown Ocean", which is not bad, but somehow for me it felt like one song too many. But it's a minor quibble, to be honest. In all, this is clearly one of the best albums of the year so far....

With the unexpected (and on-going) chart success of Mumford and Sons, and this being such a highly anticipated album, I'm guessing this album is going to crash into the top ranks of the Billboard 200 album chart upon its release, and deseverdly so. I had the chance of catching Fleet Foxes live at the Coachella music festival in April, 2009, and they were one of THE highlights of the festival for me, just mesmorizing. Equally great was the rare solo set that Robin Pecknold brought here in Cincinnati in April, 2010 at the MusicNOW festival (curated by the Dessner brothers of the National), in which he brought several of these new songs (along with some covers and nuggets from the debut album). What a set that was. Meanwhile, "Helplessness Blues" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Step Inward, A Step Backward September 9, 2011

By Tim

Format:MP3 Music

This is an album that certainly rewards repeat listening---when I first heard it, I certainly wasn't as immediately arrested by its sound as I was by Fleet Foxes' previous efforts. However, after a few listens you'll start noticing the interesting musical features of many of the songs here: the spacey tonal shift of Helplessness Blues, the insistent, strummed undercurrents of Montezuma that crest in the later parts of the song, and so on. That's good stuff, and if it were any band other than Fleet Foxes, I'd just be thrilled to have it.

However, Fleet Foxes' previous work was so surpassingly brilliant that this album ultimately just feels lackluster. What it comes down to, for me, is the poetics of the songs here. Many are lauding the album for its increased "introspectiveness," which is certainly present in spades here. Most of the songs feel as though they were written about the singer, his woes, wonderings and such. All songs have some sort of autobiographical element to them, of course; but one of the incredibly refreshing features of their earlier work was that it didn't incessantly prattle on about all the trite soul-searching of the people who wrote it. It accomplished its deeply human effects much more through folk themes and suggestive storytelling (as in my personal favorites by them, "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" and "Blue Ridge Mountains"). The problem with so much indie music is that it feels like an "Existentialism for Dummies" course all told in only a slightly different way. Fleet Foxes really pushed against that grain in their previous work, and I was sad to see them fall into the indie "oh me" mode here, certainly in terms of their lyrics, and marginally in terms of the music backing it.... Oddly enough, their previous work inspired more introspection and feeling in listeners because it wasn't so awkwardly self referential.

Ironically, some of the songs seem to acknowledge their lack of inspiration and to take that lack as inspiration, which is heart-rending in a sense, and almost interesting. The title track feels like an anthem directed to Fleet Foxes' listeners, promising something more insightful later, when they've got this sophomoric angst out of their system ("... serving something beyond me. But I don't know what that will be; I'll get back to you someday soon you'll see"). And I certainly will keep them, and even this album, on the shelf; but I do hope they find their orchard next time around. Read more ›