Music : Fleet Foxes

Rating: - 7/10
Despite all the cross referencing on here to CSN and Brian Wilson, this actually sounds like My Morning Jacket meets Peter, Paul & Mary (esp covering John Denver's "Leaving On A Jet Plane"). There are a few outstanding tracks on here (really outstanding) but tracks 4 to 7 are a little on the weak side and needed some help. I'm not saying they're poor just that the band needed to take some time to get a better running order as there's a bit of a hole in the middle. Perhaps the excellent "Your Protector" should have been moved forward.

However, a very good album and worth shelling out for.

There are some people saying that Fleet Foxes are America's next big thing. I'd just like to point out that at places on this album I'm fleetingly (excuse pun) put in mind of Animal Collective at their most conservative. At that point you have to start putting things in perspective.

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Rating: - A classic that others will try to imitate
It is not often I come back and review an album, and you can read my first thoughts below. Oliver James, the last track reminds me of She's Leaving Home by the Beatles. It is fact. Life ain't always peaches and cream.

This album is unique. It is different. It is not your usual four verses and a chorus and a middle eight, with a rock beat, or a disco beat, or any beat, so don't try dancing to it. It is a group of musicians that seem to take a title and words and then going where they want musically, enjoying themselves along the way. Who does it sound like? Everybody and nobody. I can hear CSN&Y and as solo artists, I can hear The Beach Boys, I can hear Paul Simon. I can hear some Gregorian Chants. It is all over the place encased in baroque folk rock songs, what the hell is that you might say. I don't know and I still don't so I will keep listening. That is why I gave this album 5 out of 5 stars. It has opened up wonderful, creative new ideas and thoughts about what music is and what it can be. Thank you Fleet Foxes.

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Rating: - Top Drawer
What planet does SunRa live on. This band are absolutely brilliant. OK so they have taken CSN&Y, Neil Young as reference points but then again nearly every contemporary band have taken yesteryear's bands as references for their music because popular music has never been bettered since then for sheer quality or output. Applause for tight harmonies, subtle chord changes and beautiful melodies. Also bearing in mind this is their first album, EP excepted, which is also brilliant, and it is a blistering outcome. Undoubtedly one of the finest folk-rock albums of recent years.

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Rating: - Beautiful
One of those magical albums that doesn't immediately impress, needs a little bit of your time to have a few listens before the true beauty is unleashed and then you can't stop listening to it for days and weeks on end... and then in a few years, you will glance upon it again, dust it down and remember all over again. Buy it...

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Rating: - Gorgeous
Ok, so maybe this album is not that original (insert comments about Beach Boys/ CSN influence/parody here) BUT- there is nothing new under the sun after all, and Fleet Foxes' debut still beats the 60s soul/ 70s punk/new wave and 80s electro rip-offs currently populating the charts, in my opinion. Gorgeous harmonies, twinkly piano and acoustic guitar drenched in reverb all add up to a folky, melodic masterpiece that is already one of my albums of 2008. This is the sound of a hippie choir singing their hairy hearts out in the middle of some lush green wood. Who cares if some of the songs sound samey- Fleet Foxes do what they do so well, I don't WANT them to make any huge musical detours. One of the things I love about this album is that it feels like it could be from any era; it's timeless and will surely last past the journalistic hype of the here-and-now. Wonderful!