Fleet Foxes

Shore ANTI

Pecknold throws dreamily back to his debut

Dusty mountain treks, snowedin winter cabins and rambles through tangled undergrowth. The sounds conjured by Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold are so evocative of clear-skied Americana mythologies that they connect as firmly with The Band and Crosby, Stills & Nash as they did with the generation of sumptuous shoegazers inspired by their 2008 debut.

After 2017’s experimental comeback album Crack-Up, this fourth record, with its cavernous atmospheres and chorale-like multi-vocal harmonies resembling the Beach Boys lost in limbo, harks back to that early material in an attempt to create a warm, safe sonic shoreline from which to gaze across turbulent times. It can, by nature, feel like drowning in melted marshmallow over 55 minutes, but great moments stick out like ice sculptures in a snowdrift: delicate, rippling ballads like Wading In Waist-High Water; Tymia and It’s Not My Season are sheer pastoral immersion; Jara and Young Man’s Game are white-water roils; Sunblind pays tribute to lost heroes like Judee Sill, John Prine and Elliott Smith on arguably the world’s wintriest surfing song. ■■■■■■■■■■