On their classic 2008 debut, Fleet Foxes told us that ‘Memory is a fickle siren song, I didn’t understand’. That album’s long-awaited follow-up, ‘Helplessness Blues’, is about the process of trying to understand; it is an album steeped in memories. ‘Remember when you had me cut your hair?’ Robin asks on ‘Sim Bala Bim’. On ‘Bedouin Dress’ he sees an ex-lover who is wearing a ‘Geometric patterned dress, gleaming white, just as I recall.’ Practically every song sees Robin fretting over one memory or another, before usually coming to the conclusion that at some point, somehow, he got old and alone.
Of course, to try to tie this album down to a single theme is silly, this is one of the most richly textured albums I’ve heard in a long time. Symbolic references to fountains, light, dreams and time spring up in virtually every other song and you could easily point out several major themes linking the tracks, memory is just the one I decided to mention. ‘Helplessness Blues’ is a highly anticipated album, and the pressures of following the debut clearly got to Robin, but this is far from a thrown together follow-up that retreads old ground, it is incredibly detailed and magnificently ambitious whilst feeling totally understated.
Fleet Foxes never re-invented the wheel, but they were so much better at what they did than everybody else that it felt almost like they had reinvented the wheel. Everything from the artwork to the harmonies to the production was just flawless. This time around they haven’t got the shock factor to blow people away, so I half suspected them to go in a completely different direction – but thankfully they haven’t; They do push the boat out at times, but for the most part it’s all fairly familiar. That said, there is nothing on ‘Helplessness Blues’ to match ‘Fleet Foxes’ best moments, and strangely enough, the highlights here are essentially solo songs. ‘Someone You Admire’ is a gloriously restrained song about conflicting emotions, and ‘Blue Spotted Tail’ is one of a few songs where Robin ponders his place in the universe, alone and with his guitar.
The other Foxes grand contributions are a lot less obvious than they were on the debut. It seems to me that Robin is harmonising with himself a lot of the time; the type of a capella sing-songs that defined the debut are rarer to find (although they still sound brilliant when they do show up). Instrumentally the album is fairly traditional; there is the odd foray into the strange and unexpected (such as the violin on ‘Bedouin Dress’ and ‘An Argument’) but don’t expect a synth pop or dubstep diversion. The epic ‘The Shrine/An Argument’ is the musical centerpiece, an 8 minute exploration of folky ambiance, loud-quiet dynamics and choral chanting.
This is an album of contrasts; many songs are more condensed and straightforward than anything on the debut, but several are far longer and more complex. There are some of the band’s most melodic and beautiful moments on here but there are also some of their darkest. You get poppy moments (‘Lorelai’, ‘Grown Ocean’ and ‘Battery Kinzie’) followed by very un-poppy moments (‘Bitter Dancer’, The Cascades’, ‘The Shrine’). The sheer amount going on makes ‘Helplessness Blues’ feel longer than it actually is and I wonder if this is an easy album to admire but a difficult one to love; some of the things that make it so impressive and occasionally brilliant are the things that hold it back. Just maybe it’s a bit too ambitious and try-hard for its own good.
I’m still trying to understand ‘Helplessness Blues’ to be honest, there are so many contrasts and contradictions that just thinking about it makes my head spin. It can’t hope to match the impact of the band’s debut, but it pulls of the difficult job of staying true to the bands roots whilst subtly pushing their sound in some new directions. Overall, this is one of the year’s best releases and it practically defines the term ‘grower’, so don’t be surprised to see this at the top of many end of year best of lists.
8.5/10
Pop goes the Weasel 