Album Review: Fleet Foxes Show The Beauty Of Disillusion In “Crack-Up”
Beauty is hard thing to capture, which is why people dwindle it to the eye of a beholder; you have to see it to believe it. It is like, when a friends show you a picture of their vacation, and you both mutually marvel at how the image did not measure to the reality. In some ways, I use that excuse to review Fleet Foxes new album Crack-Up. It is both a beauty to behold/ listen, and also a sonic journey into the disillusion of such a notion.
Fleet Foxes – If You Need To, Keep Time on Me
It is no secret; we are living in dark times, and optimism, now more than ever, feels like a nuisance. Nowadays, it is easy to feel like humanity and inhumanity are one in the same, which is why Fleet Foxes lyrically pierce through dark note to find the “ray of hope” that say, “Don’t say that!”. With elaborate, picturesque orchestrations, songs like, “I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar” and “Crack-Up” feel like you are soaring through mountains on a euphoric, acid trip. They make you see nature from an altered state, which plays into the idea of lead singer Robin Pecknold as a man seeing man dilute and diminish it beauty, and trying to figure out, Why?. Now, of course, Pecknold is not the first human being to ask this question nor the last, or even the youngest. I am sure there is a fiver year old right now wondering the cruelty of humankind to deny him a toy. Yet, that sentiment is not wrong. The irony of each human being is that it craves to hear “yes” a billion times to all its desires, dreams, and loves, but it will most likely hear and be a giant purveyor of “no” to both their self and others. Pecknold embraces the negativity of humanity that never loses its serenity even as it nosedives into darkness as in “Naiads, Cassadies”, “Fool’s Errand”, and “Third of May / Ōdaigahara”. Still, it is hard to even see this album as a reflector and analyzer of human disenfranchisement, when, again, the instrumentals are so pretty. Every beat seems kissed by a star; never losing its brightness despite its celestial home going dark, which is a befitting feel for an album aimed to find the last light in a human soul.
Fleet Foxes – Fool’s Errand (Official Video)
Fleet Foxes’ Crack Up is an album to press play and wait till every chord fades into a key that fades into Pecknold’s voice, as if to live in their album was to live in a cosmic warp. By their fourth song, “Kept Woman”, you begin to feel as if every track crashes and clasps to the other like a human chain of people that do not know how to hold on to each other but know they need to. For More Information On Fleet Foxes And To Buy Crack-Up On June 16 Click Here.
Fleet Foxes – Third of May / Ōdaigahara (Lyric Video)
