2. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
A lot of music this year was built around expansions — bands coming into their own fully realized sound. Fleet Foxes did it beautifully. Helplessness Blues, the Seattle group’s sophomore album, blooms so majestically, their lush debut seems threadbare in comparison.
Helplessness Blues isn’t a departure by any means. It’s the blossom of the seeds sewn with their self-titled debut.
Robin Pecknold, the group’s songwriter, sought to capture the essence of Van Morrison’s 1968 masterpiece, Astral Weeks. He and the rest of the band succeeded wildly.
Spirituality flows from every song. The title track ponders the meaning of life, and Pecknold offers his answer: “And now, after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me.” He’s backed by an incredible array of instruments — everything from a hammer dulcimer and a Marxophone to woodwinds and Tibetan singing bowls — that elevate their sound far beyond indie folk.
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