Fleet Foxes Shore 180g 2LP

Rolling Stone's The 50 Best Albums of 2020 - Rated 17/50!
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Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold shares, "SHORE feels like a relief, like you'd feel when your feet finally hit sand after getting caught in a riptide. It's a celebration of life in the face of death, honoring our lost musical heroes, from David Berman to John Prine to Judee Sill to Bill Withers, embracing the joy and solace they brought to our lives and honoring their memory. SHORE is an object levitating between the magnetic fields of the past and the future."

The album was recorded in upstate New York at Aaron Dessner's Long Pond Studio, in Paris at Studios St. Germain, in Los Angeles at the legendary Vox, in Long Island City at Diamond Mine, and New York City's Electric Lady.

Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut made a profound impact on the international musical landscape, earning them Uncut's first ever Music Award Prize and a spot in Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the 2000s. The follow-up album Helplessness Blues was met with the same critical praise as it's predecessor (MOJO, Pitchfork's Best New Music) and earned them a GRAMMY nomination. Both Fleet Foxes and Helplessness Blues are certified Gold in the US. The band's third studio album Crack-Up, released in 2017, charted #9 on the Billboard Top 200. Fleet Foxes have sold over 2 million records in the US. Large vinyl fanbase with over 50% of their sales coming from physical configurations.

The album is bright and open, recalling, at times, the sunniness of their early songs, as well as the lighter moments of 2017's Crack-Up, like 'Fool's Errand.' Instead of turning away from major-key melodies and blissful vocal harmonies, Pecknold leans into musical happiness on songs like 'Sunblind' and 'Young Man's Game,' among the most jubilant entries in the band's catalog.

Altogether grand, sobering, and inspiring, Shore flows much like Fleet Foxes' everlasting early work and might just be their best album since those days.

There are several elements that make a Fleet Foxes album great. Layered vocals, daring instrumental swells and vibrant, at times anxious, lyrics are all present throughout their catalogue, from the assured folk-pop of their 2008 self-titled debut to the magnificent existential ramblings on 2017's Crack-Up. These signifiers are all present on their new album Shore, but the effects are much more nuanced. Fleet Foxes remain a quintessential millennial band, and, on Shore - which dropped with only a day's warning - they're once again tapping into the millennial psyche, this time with a little more optimism.

It may be the prettiest version yet of his finely wrought soft-rock pastoralism - from the sky-kissing sweep of 'Young Man's Game' to the sublime acoustic tune 'I'm Not My Season.' The most moving moments pay tribute to departed musical heroes, from David Berman of the Silver Jews to Nick Drake and Otis Redding, and time and again Shore believably connects Pecknold's own musical vision with the eternal.

The 55-minute equivalent of putting a seashell next to your ear to access the calming effects of the ocean, Shore succeeds at stemming the underlying storms brewing within us all. In essence, Fleet Foxes have enacted a deeper, zen-tastic 21st-century upgrade to yacht rock.