New Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues P(review)

Listen, love, repeat.

Easily one of the most anticipated sophomore albums since Weezer's Pinkerton, Helplessness Blues is due to drop in stores in a little over a month. Un?fortunately, the album has already leaked all over the internet like a BP oil well (too soon?)  I'm not saying we listened to it, I'm not saying we didn't.

What we're not going to do: tell people where to find it.  What we will do: describe the album's sound, list the tracks and post the three songs released by the band to date.  Of course there's the beautiful, driving, times-were-simpler-then, title track, Helplessness Blues, but there's also Bedouin Dress, an easy, Sunday-drive-of-a-song, and Battery Kinzie, probably the song most similar to their eponymous first album, EP and Sun Giant EP.  These three early releases are very indicative of the album's overall timbre - gently rolling melodies, broad harmonies, head-bobbing and shoulder-swaying songs reminiscent of certain 60's folk legends.

Quite simply, there's nobody else in the public mainstream making music like this right now.  Listen, love, repeat.

1. "Montezuma"
2. "Bedouin Dress"
3. "Sim Sala Bim"
4. "Battery Kinzie"
5. "The Plains/Bitter Dancer"
6. "Helplessness Blues"
7. "The Cascades"
8. "Lorelai"
9. "Someone You'd Admire"
10. "The Shrine/An Argument"
11. "Blue Spotted Tail"
12. "Grown Ocean"