In recent years, Seattle-based Sub Pop Records has played a big part in marketing a softer breed of pop music churning out brilliant records by The Shins, Vancouver’s Wolf Parade, and Seattle natives Band of Horses.
The most recent Sub Pop signee, Seattle’s own five-piece Fleet Foxes, further stretch the limits of this mellow style of folk pop/rock, citing influences such as music from fantasy movies, Motown and even hymns. The hymnal influence especially shines through like a setting sun, allowing the blissful harmonies to bask in the golden haze on their new “Sun Giant” EP. The five-song release that was digitally available on Feb 28, captures the newly realized essence of the band.
After getting bogged down in standard genres and sonic archetypes on their 2006 self-titled debut EP, guitarist Robin Pecknold, 21, decided to take the band in a new direction, putting a harmony at the forefront. The band claims to have grown up on harmonious acts like Crosby,Stills and Nash, The Beach Boys and The Zombies and wish to stay true to those roots.
Pecknold has been trying to stray away from the norm and according to a January article in Seattle’s “The Stranger,” Pecknold has started to “try and avoid conventional song structures” while the rest of the band has been “avoiding choruses and verses in favor of long vocal rounds and alternating instrumental sections.”
Megan Seling, who covered the band for “The Stranger,” said that “everyone’s voice is an instrument.” Fleet Foxes huge five-part harmonies are at the center of their sound. While guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards set the base for the songs and unconventional pop instrumentation such as banjo and mandolin prevail, the entire EP is held together by their opulent vocal harmonies.
The young band shrugs off the buzz they have been receiving, which is not surprising due to the nature of their modest songs about friends and the dreary Pacific Northwest. After pitchforkmedia.com declared their “Sun Giant” EP “Best New Music” (an 8.7 rating out of 10), the band’s Myspace page reads “Worst New Music,” possibly a stab at the godlike stature Pitchfork Media holds in many a hipster’s eye.
The band’s sound has been self-described as “minstrelsy” and the songs have been dubbed “baroque harmonic pop jams.” Pecknold’s superb song craftsmanship evokes scenes of a creaky back porch in the Deep South. The most intriguing track on the EP, “English House,” conjures that image, making dramatic dynamic changes between lush vocal parts and multi-layered, mandolin-drenched sections.
The band is expecting to release its first full-length record on Sub Pop June 3, an eleven track venture tentatively called “Rugged Wood.” The LP will be devoid of any material found on “Sun Giant,” which will be available in physical form April 8,though the MP3s can already be purchased directly from Sub Pop.
Though comparisons to label-mates “Band of Horses” are destined to be made, the difference lies in Band of Horses’ mostly guitar-driven rock songs, whereas Fleet Foxes prefer different folk accompaniments and occasional organ-sounding keyboard flares. As their Myspace page states, they are “not much of a rock band.”
On Feb 28, Fleet Foxes performed at San Francisco’s Noise Pop Festival, the first date on their spring tour. Fleet Foxes will take their act across the country, from California, to Texas, and up the Atlantic seaboard, ending back in the Northwest.
The tour includes a free show at The Grind at Clark University in Worcester on March 30, the closest they’ll come to Amherst this time around. Select songs from the “Sun Giant” EP and from the “Ragged Wood” full-length are streaming on their Myspace page, which is an amusing adventure to click through.
It’s a good feeling to see a young band live up to their aspirations and to receive credit and praise for it without letting it go to their heads. Now that is what music’s all about.
Ian Nelson can be reached at [email protected]
