REVIEW: Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

Fleet Foxes
Helplessness Blues
.5 (out of 5)

As a youngster I remember being hauled along by my parents to various folk festivals around the Waikato region. These little get-togethers happened at the foot of Mt Te Aroha, the Hunua Ranges and everywhere in between.

I remember genuinely enjoying the music and community at these festivals, but I also remember distinctly thinking that “this music is not ‘cool’”. And it wasn’t. But now, for some reason, it is. As the old saying goes, “there is nothing new under the sun” - and Solomon’s wise words ring true for folk music’s inexplicable comeback into the popular music sphere.

Mumford and Sons’ rollicking tales of sorrow sit awkwardly next to the usual RnB fare (i.e., rubbish) on mainstream radio, and even our own “world famous in the world“ Avalanche City has been caught up in a panoramic rise, the most recent episode being an interview on conservative media-giant Fox News.

I think that “European roots” current passé toward a much wider audience has a lot to do with the release of Fleet Foxes’ stunning 2008 self-titled debut, and now the group is back with more of their colourful choral illustration through Helplessness Blues; their characteristically warm harmonies and hammered acoustic instrumentation alighting from the get-go.

Fleet Foxes seem to have this way of making you feel at home immersed in their rustic orchestration. The perfectly placed woodwind flourishes, shimmering string arrangements, finger-picked artistry and driving percussion call up haunting images of autumn; ghostly plains, the coast, orchards and other agricultural iconography pushing through the record’s openly-rounded production. The subtle syncopation of “Battery Kinzie” will get you harmonising along with the group, whether you know the lyrics or not – the band likes having you around, and it’s this welcoming sound which defines (and makes us love) them.

“What makes me love you despite the reservations?/What do I see in your eyes?” - Lyricist Robin Pecknold is a lover and a poet, and it’s his song writing that holds the record to its re-interpreted palette of throw-back Appalachian folk.  Bursting through the heaped up layering of drop-tuned acoustic guitars, title track 'Helplessness Blues' spins a coming-of-age yarn, questioning his role in society and parent-instilled belief that he “was somehow unique”, stating that he’d “rather be a functioning cog in some great machine serving something beyond”.

The emotionally-laden 'Lorelai' is an obvious love song, with lines such as “you were like glue/holding each of us together” and “I still see you when I try to sleep” allowing you to wander off into your rose-tinted room of memory. The eight-minute three-part epic 'The Shrine/An Argument' flips the romantic daydream over, using the sustained metaphor of “pennies in the fountain” and “apples in the summer” to tell a forlorn tale of love lost. She’s “in the doorway holding every letter that (you) wrote/in the driveway pulling away putting on (her) coat/in the ocean washing off (your) name from (her) throat”, and you “just stay awhile here staring at the sea”. She’s gone – the cacophonic avante garde saxophone lines at the end of the song indicative of the chaos heartbreak brings.

I gave Helplessness Blues its first few spins on the road through the Waikato plains from Hamilton to Thames, then again across the Coromandel Ranges to Tairua for a quick autumnal surf - and finally at my childhood home in Thames (pleasantly nestled next to the bush and river overlooking the ocean). Context is everything. Listening to Helplessness Blues in the locales in which it was written about gives it a sense of time and place. It makes sense to me, anyway. I love it. It’s a good record.

Fleet Foxes have made me feel like home. I love that - and as the trees shiver off the last of their leaves, it might just be the record that sees me through another cold winter.

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

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By Theo Sangster.