Ah the ‘difficult second album’. Fleet Foxes might not be every band but they couldn’t resist embracing this rock n’ roll cliché whilst shunning most other ones. Reports of sessions scrapped, whole songs turfed and front man Robin Pecknold’s confession that he lost a relationship amidst the trauma of making this album.
Unsurprisingly, it’s pretty dark, the group’s piercing harmonies like a cold wind whistling across the North American prairie – alternately a coyote’s evil yelp or the enticing and soothing lullaby of a friendly water sprite. Opener ‘Montezuma’ is a band playing harder and heavier than when we left them on their eponymous debut, and immediately it becomes clear that Pecknold doesn’t sit comfortably with the lifestyle a platinum selling album and worldwide critical acclaim brings – he’s looking for an escape. Whether it’s metaphorically through the poetry of WB Yeats who the lyrics tip their hat to, or perhaps literally to a place alluded to in the title track free from the burdens of their current existence; Helplessness Blues finds Pecknold world weary but resigned, old before his time but remaining hopeful.
Musically the album may not have the stand out angelic uplifting hymns of its predecessor as it is far denser, both lyrically and musically and although the lush harmonies are still present, they are tied down to the music and restrained from soaring far above – rather like Pecknold’s soul it would seem.
– Jim Murray
