The Fleet Foxes are a rock band that sounds like no other -- imagine a pastoral choir overwhelming a sweeping folk-rock band, in the middle of a sunlit forest in the spring.

That's about the sound of the Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut album -- it's a stream of lush, jangly folk pop, edged with a touch of baroque and country-rock. While their "Sun Giant" EP was an excellent introduction, it's nothing compared to the rough-edged grandeur of the full-length album, with its glorious instrumentation and vivid lyricism.

The only really offputting part of the album is the opening five seconds, when an off-key chorale sings, "Reeeeed squirrel in the morning/Reeeeeeeed squirrel in the evening..."

Then the song suddenly melts into a gentle acoustic guitar shimmering with keyboard. "The sun rises, over my head/Hold me dear, into the night/Sun it will rise soon in the morn..." Robin Pecknold sings with all the solemnity of a choirboy. His voice soars over the steelier riffs and thumping drums, only to settle down with, "The sun rising, dangling there/Golden and fair, in the sky..."

Wow. When an intro is that lovely, just imagine what the songs that follow are going to be like.

In this case, it's the shifting folky "White Winter Hymnal," with its kettle drums and beautiful campfire harmonies ("I was following... I was following... I was following the pack/all swallowed in their coats/with scarves of red tied 'round their throats"), followed by the endearingly energetic rocker "Ragged Wood" ("You should come back home/back on your own now!").

It gets no less endearing after that: Gentle bluesy ballads, jangly folk-pop with lots of squiggly mellotron, sweeping pop chorales, bouncy countryish rockers with lots of intertwined guitars. Things get quieter near the end -- "Fleet Foxes" ends with a trio of lower-key, folkier ballads, sometimes with nothing more than Pecknold's voice and a guitar.

There's something very warm and welcoming about the Fleet Foxes' music, and there's hardly a song on their self-titled album that doesn't contain that sunniness. And though the bittersweet songs focus on the usual topics -- family, love, lost friends -- there's a strong feeling of pastoral beauty, especially since they're sprinkled with meadowlarks, wood-women, "quivering forests," Tennessee and grassy graves.

In fact, the lyrics are crammed with vivid ("And, Michael, you would fall/and turn the white snow red as strawberries") and striking language ("I hold a cornucopia and a golden crown"). At times, the band's lyrics are pure poetry ("Wanderers this morning came by/Where did they go?/Graceful in the morning light/To banner fair/To follow you softly/In the cold mountain air...").

These songs are wrapped in lush melodies of striking music, which happily swirl together folk, classic earthy rock, pop, baroque and a bit of country. And an coustic guitar is the lead instrument here; sometimes it's all by itself, and sometimes it's intertwined with a smooth mix of other instruments -- hollow drums, rippling mellotron, steely guitar, and a hint of harp being plucked somewhere.

And finally there's Robin Pecknold. He sounds a little off-key in the spare ballads, but in the more complex songs he sounds sweet, strong and truly beautiful, especially when he does that soaring thing. And I have to say, I'm a sucker for the band's sunny chorale sound -- the harmonies really make those melodies sound exquisite.

The Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut is one of the best albums I've heard all year, with its blend of styles and bittersweetly lovely songs. Haunting and truly lovely.

The Fleet Foxes are a rock band that sounds like no other -- imagine a pastoral choir overwhelming a sweeping folk-rock band, in the middle of a sunlit forest in the spring.

That's about the sound of the Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut album -- it's a stream of lush, jangly folk pop, edged with a touch of baroque and country-rock. While their "Sun Giant" EP serves as an excellent prologue (and is included as a bonus disc in the "Special Edition"), it's nothing compared to the rough-edged grandeur of the full-length album, with its glorious instrumentation and vivid lyricism. It's a stunning little composition.

The only really offputting part of the album is the opening five seconds, when an off-key chorale sings, "Reeeeed squirrel in the morning/Reeeeeeeed squirrel in the evening..."

Then the song suddenly melts into a gentle acoustic guitar shimmering with keyboard. "The sun rises, over my head/Hold me dear, into the night/Sun it will rise soon in the morn..." Robin Pecknold sings with all the solemnity of a choirboy. His voice soars over the steelier riffs and thumping drums, only to settle down with, "The sun rising, dangling there/Golden and fair, in the sky..."

Wow. When an intro is that lovely, just imagine what the songs that follow are going to be like.

In this case, it's the shifting folky "White Winter Hymnal," with its kettle drums and beautiful campfire harmonies ("I was following... I was following... I was following the pack/all swallowed in their coats/with scarves of red tied 'round their throats"), followed by the endearingly energetic rocker "Ragged Wood" ("You should come back home/back on your own now!").

It gets no less endearing after that: Gentle bluesy ballads, jangly folk-pop with lots of squiggly mellotron, sweeping pop chorales, bouncy countryish rockers with lots of intertwined guitars. Things get quieter near the end -- the Fleet Foxes end the album with a trio of lower-key, folkier ballads, sometimes with nothing more than Pecknold's voice and a guitar.

And the Special Edition includes what every Fleet Foxes fan should have -- their debut album "Sun Giant." It opens witha solemn harmony of choir-like vocals accompanied only by a plucked mandolin. "What a life I lead when the sun breaks free/as a giant torn from the clouds/what a life indeed when that ancient seed/is a berry watered and plowed," the Fleet Foxes intone, sounding very innocent and awestruck.

Then the tone shifts with the eerie, sort-of--medieval "Drops in the River," the catchy folkpop "English House" with its woobly synth and countryish riffs (think a folksier Grizzly Bear). The rock sound becomes a bit more organic after that, with the smooth, tight pop melody of "Mykonos," but it's still punctuated with jangly guitars and soaring harmonies. And "Innocent Son" rounds the EP off with a subtle, wistful little folk melody that laments, "some twisted thorn tells me you saw me in the night with another..."

There's something very warm and welcoming about the Fleet Foxes' music -- a blend of jangly rock, folk and electronica -- and there's hardly a song on their self-titled album that doesn't contain that sunniness. And though the bittersweet songs focus on the usual topics -- family, love, lost friends -- there's a strong feeling of pastoral beauty, especially since they're sprinkled with meadowlarks, wood-women, "quivering forests," Tennessee and grassy graves.

In fact, the lyrics are crammed with vivid ("And, Michael, you would fall/and turn the white snow red as strawberries") and striking language ("I hold a cornucopia and a golden crown"). At times, the band's lyrics are pure poetry ("Wanderers this morning came by/Where did they go?/Graceful in the morning light/To banner fair/To follow you softly/In the cold mountain air..."), but tinged with sorrow ("Rust suddenly falling beside me on a ghost of a morning/riding in sorrow to the harbor/far behind me, the bodies of my friends...").

These songs are wrapped in lush melodies of striking music, which happily swirl together folk, classic earthy rock, pop, baroque and a bit of country. And an acoustic guitar is the lead instrument here; sometimes it's all by itself, and sometimes it's intertwined with a smooth mix of other instruments -- hollow drums, rippling mellotron, steely guitar, and a hint of harp being plucked somewhere.

And finally there's Robin Pecknold. He sounds a little off-key in the spare ballads, but in the more complex songs he sounds sweet, strong and truly beautiful, especially when he does that soaring thing. And I have to say, I'm a sucker for the band's sunny chorale sound -- the harmonies really make those melodies sound exquisite, and gives them a more transcendent sound than most folk-rock bands.

The Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut is one of the best albums I've heard all year, with its blend of styles and bittersweetly lovely songs. Haunting and truly lovely.

Eccentric and familiar at the same time; the self titled full length from Seattle's Fleet Foxes is nothing short of spellbinding. Borrowing heavily from olden-folk and country-rock, the album packs a futuristic vintage punch, although it's much more like a subtle kiss on the cheek. Peckhold's voice is always in reverberating reverence to the past, and the band's playing constitutes the very same greatness. The music is full of a mystically optimistic spirit; graceful and invigorating, all finespun into a genius work of art unlike anything else. Easily one of the most original and beautiful albums to come along on a long time.

Fleet Foxes, another in the infinite line of contemporary "animal" bands; what a special record! I'm not really well versed enough to see in it comparisons to Wolf Mother or Wolf Parade or Deerhoof or Deerhunter or Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear or Huggy Bear (ok, so that's a blast from the past).

What I do see in it is a reflection of a more distant tradition. There are compositional references, vocal styles, and arrangement nods to those more "baroque pop" 60's Beach Boys records; the epic scope and the lushness and depth of pop complexities of

an essential 1970's record by Milton Nasciamento and Lo Borges; yet there's also the spaciousness and intimacy of last year's Bon Iver record,

. Like those references, the music is absolutely listenable and deeply enjoyable and somehow makes you feel like you're enjoying something quite special.

I love it.

I had a bootleg of this album a month before the official release. (Not to worry, I bought the cd here as soon as it came out) It took this long to write a review because it's not an easy album to fully comprehend in the short term. After the nearly perfect and perhaps more accessible debut ep Sun Giant, this full-length cd was far more difficult to warm up to. But just as in life, where nothing worth doing is ever easy, the brilliance of this album becomes more and more obvious over time.

Comparisons to other bands might seem easy, but ultimately are only useful as a guidepost to a type of sound that might interest you as a listener. So sure, if you like any of the 70's (or 00's) bands with a folk/rock/freak sound you may be open to the Foxes. If Led Zep was your main 70's band, you may want to look elsewhere. The Beach Boys may be one band that could be argued to be a significant influence. (As songwriter and front man Robin Pecknold would probably acknowledge.) Yet they sound NOTHING at all like them. Nothing. But the song structures, the harmonies, the lack of glorious guitar solos (which some wrongly refer to as "chops") might owe more to the Beach Boys than CSN&Y, (who many seem to forget were a super group that could rock out with the best of them when they wanted to).

The most striking thing about the Fleet Foxes, what separates them from most other bands out there today, is not what you have heard. It's not the harmonies. It's not the reverb or the beards or Seattle or the massive buzz surrounding them. It's the most basic of all things when it comes to music. The songwriting.

Pecknold, at 21 or 22, has already composed a collection of classics. At least six or seven of the eleven songs on this album are standards to their fans and will be screamed for and sung along with twenty years from now if we are all lucky enough to be around by then. I kid you not... The other songs are nearly as good, making it the most listenable album to come along not just this year, but probably in many, many years.

If you feel like it, you can read my little battle with Hercules_doh in the comments section of his review. Though I feel even more strongly now about the band and the album than at that time, Meadowlarks still stands out as perhaps the only miss between the first two albums. And it's a very near miss at that. It's actually quite beautiful, but the lyrics at one point become a little too affected to be taken seriously. A minor quibble to be sure.

The best thing for fans of indie music is that this band will never be for everyone. As hot as they are right now, there are already haters out there and ears that are just not open to this kind of sound. As beautiful as the songs are, as sweet as the harmonies are and as absent the screeching guitar solos are: do not be fooled. This is serious music that is just different enough to keep it interesting for a lot of fans but will scare away the massive audiences that would probably end up ruining it.