Robin Pecknold wrote and produced the bandās fourth studio album, Shore, on his own, using the guitar like a composer to make textured, orchestral songs that uplift.
Fleet Foxes
ShoreFollowing a three-year break, indie-folk outfit Fleet Foxes has returned with its fourth studio album, Shore, released this autumnal equinox. Their 2017 release, Crack-Up, saw songwriter Robin Pecknold traipsing into structurally abstract territory. On Shore, Pecknold takes his orchestral, reinvented-ā60s-rock sound and places it into a more contextualized format, generously embroidering it with Seattle-born brass quartet, the Westerlies. An intently uplifting work, Shore was written and produced by Pecknold without his bandmatesāa first under the Fleet Foxes name.
Pecknold uses the guitar like a composer, writing simple motifs from which he extrapolates scenic, technicolor arrangements featuring acoustic and electric interplay, guiding with melodic lines (āSunblindā and āThymiaā), creating gentle textures on songs like āFeatherweightā and āA Long Way Past the Past,ā and at times echoing his Beach Boys-esque, reverb-bathed vocals (āMaestranzaā). Shore breathes with a sense of midsummer freedom and contemplation, offering a new heart to a tiring season.
Must-hear tracks: āFeatherweight,ā āMaestranzaā