EVAN WAY

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Fleet Foxes

The opening track on Fleet Foxes’ debut EP is the perfect introduction to this Seattle band, whose carefully fashioned songs reward more active listening than your typical indie-roots outfit. “Sun Giant” begins with their soft harmonies reverberating in what sounds like a cathedral space. With no accompaniment, their sustained a cappella notes fade slowly, adding gravity to this hymn of contentment: “What a life I lead in the summer/ What a life I lead in the spring.” The only other instrument is Skyler Skjelset’s mandolin, which enters late in the song playing a delicate theme as singer Robin Pecknold hums quietly.

The Sun Giant EP– sold on tour and digitally through Sub Pop, with a proper release forthcoming– contains familiar sounds, but Fleet Foxes make something new and special with them, following their own musical whims as closely as they follow tradition. (Maybe more closely.) These five songs– modest but never spare, atmospheric but never as an end in itself– change shape constantly, taking in elements of classic rock, church music, old-timey folk, and soundtrack flourishes. Already mistaken for Southern rock (there’s not enough boogie in Nicholas Peterson’s drums for that), Fleet Foxes will bear repeated comparisons, both praising and disparaging, to groups like My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses, but those connections are based on superficial similarities like geography or the heavy use of reverb. In fact, Fleet Foxes’ touchstones are much more diverse than that– and not necessarily so contemporary. – Pitchfork

with:
The Dutchess & The Duke
Evan Way (of the Parson Red Heads)