Singer and main author of Fleet Foxes, Robin Pecknold, needed six years to write and shape the material for band's third studio album titled Crack-Up. The road he took to accomplish it was surprisingly long. From time to time, I was reading news about him; he pursued degree at the University of New York, then he left college, then he played in Gene Clark No Other Band (btw, Gene Clark is worth of your time, don't forget to check out his best album No Other), then he hung out with Beach House, Fairport Convention and The Walkmen. Finally, by the end of last year, I have read that Fleet Foxes are preparing their new effort.
Crack-Up is stylistically in the same territory they sonically pissed on (pardon my French) with the previous two albums, but the songs became more complex. The boundary verse, transition and chorus is erased, which makes song turn to suite. None of this puts clearness of Pecknold's artistic expression in doubt, since there is no single clue that this man got lost in the sea of equivocal waves. Taking a look at the list of performers on this record, you realize that Robin pretty much created the whole concept, and then the guys joined him in subsequent phases.
While listening to the album, I was left with the impression that songs were created longitudinally. I am pretty sure this was nerdy approach - many rejected recordings while patiently waiting for songs to mature and blossom. I would hypothesize this even If I didn't know that it took 6 years for Fleet Foxes comeback. Their sensibility is the same as it was six years ago, yet they sound more well-rounded and more affectionate. Pecknold is still a vulnerable boy, but nowadays he knows how to precisely articulate his vulnerability.
What they have tried to accomplish on sHelpless Blue with The Shrine/An Argument is now reached in almost every song - American folk woven in dissonant accents. Barely detectable vocal-instrumental sections in the background are magnificent kontrapunkt to those in the first plan. Ghosts of Beach Boys, jazz escapades, twisted rhythms, guitar-driven sonic mastery; all of this is to be found on the album, especially on a track Kent Woman. It seems like folk music is successfully deconstructed and dissected to minutiae just so that it could be successfully brought back to atonal wholeness.
The final verdict: six years wait was worth it.
