FLEET FOXES Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop) 

I’ve tried to enjoy this band, I really have. Unfortunately, to me their 2008 debut still sounds mostly like a copy of the first Crosby, Stills & Nash album that’s been for a lengthy dip in My Morning Jacket’s echo chamber. I wouldn’t deny they have the odd pretty good song – “White Winter Hymnal” and “Mykonos”, for instance – but not the half-dozen or so of the same quality that might have me feeling more charitable towards them and this. Their Bon Iver-style we-all-live-in-a-log-cabin-us preciousness and the Douglas Coupland-writing-for-Pitchfork pretentiousness of the sleevenotes are further irritants. To me they’re Arcade Fire’s country cousins, better at weaving mystique than memorable music, however much I wish I could hear what others do in them.

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