New Music from Fleet Foxes

Hello readers and fans of WLTL! This week, I, Natalia Madrigal, would like to introduce you to one of my favorite bands: Fleet Foxes; and break down their newest album Shore.

Fleet Foxes are an accomplished Seattle-based indie folk band formed in 2006. More popularly known for their 2008 hit (and one of my all time favorite songs) “White Winter Hymnal” off their self-titled album, they have reinvented themselves after drummer Joshua Tillman (aka Father John Misty), left the group in 2012. After a six-year hiatus, the folk band led by guitar player and singer Robin Peckold, dove back in by releasing their 2017 album, Crack-Up, about Pecknold's existential crises and feelings of alienation as he tries to work through it while occasionally referencing and alluding back to their debut self-titled album.

Now, with their newest album Shore abruptly released on this past autumnal equinox, Fleet Foxes come to an understanding that while they are not necessarily a very old group, they are no longer the trend-setters. Despite this, they are happy and at peace with the idea of aging and with their legacy. Peckold admitted, “I see ‘Shore’ as a place of safety on the edge of something uncertain … tempted by the adventure of the unknown at the same time you are relishing the comfort of the stable ground beneath you. This was the mindset I found, the fuel I found, for making this album.” 

They have transformed the anxiety and worry prominent in Crack-Up, into gratitude and acceptance. Instead of abandoning their major-key melodies and his dreamy vocals, Peckold actually leans into the joyfulness on songs like “Sunblind” and “Young Man’s Game”. 

Facing the inevitability of aging and fading is quite worrisome for many, but in the words of Robin Peckold, “I could worry through each night/ Find something unique to say/ I could pass as erudite/ But it's a young man's game.”

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