Album Review: Fleet Foxes - "Sun Giant" (9/10)

By Old Man

You need some serious cajones to open a debut E.P. with a choral song. Serious cajones. And that is precisely what lead singer Robin Pecknold and the Fleet Foxes have. This five song E.P. put out by Seattle stalwarts Sub Pop makes some bold statements from the get go.

The opening song (and title of the E.P.) is a dandy named "Sun Giant," which plays out like an O Brother Where Art Thou old-timey hymn. "What a life I live in the spring time / What a life I live in the spring" says the band innocently. "Drops in the River," sounds like a eastern-mediterranean version of Sun Kil Moon, complete with Sitar and marching 4/4 beat. "English House," is a gypsy song with some beautiful and suprising chord changes, filled with yearning and hope. The diamond of the album, however, is the two part song "Mykonos," in which Pecknold sounds like he is channeling a Nebraska era Bruce Springsteen, in charge of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young . Sound odd? It actually works - wonderfully, in fact. It's a story, taking place (perhaps) in ancient Greece about a friend who constantly disappears. That's seems to be their thing - employing history to give gravity to humanity. Which is why I don't get Pecknold's aversion to the 70's rock he is so obviously influenced by, stating defiantly "We are not hippies" in an interview with Seattle weekly newspaper, The Stranger. I am sure he has his reasons.

Sun Giant does something I haven't seen done well from any Seattle, or even Bellingham band, ever (Eddie Vedder's Into the Wild soundtrack is an exception - but that isn't a band effort): Write music that represents the vast majority of the Pacific Northwest. Beautiful untamed wilderness, open space, vast bodies of water, and dense, dark forest. Unlike the urban hymns of their now contemporaries Death Cab for Cutie, The Shins (I know, Albequerque - but they moved to Portland years ago), Stephen Malkmus, Pedro the Lion, and (fill in the blank x10), the Foxes are willing to write natural world, grand, beautiful baroque pop that encapsulates the maze of logging roads that traverse the landscape outside of Seattle and Portland's carparks.

This is, perhaps, the best debut E.P. I have heard from a band. Their Myspace page has them playing a few shows with Wilco in August. Perhaps that is a sign of what is to come for the Fleet Foxes.

Regardless - I hope they don't lose touch with their roots on there (at this point) inevitable climb upward. It's rare to find a band that has the distinct sense of place - even within the limitations of an E.P. Highly recommended.