Music Pick: Fleet Foxes

You’d think that someone trying to “find himself” would probably want to avoid the bedlam of Manhattan, where things and souls are more easily lost than found. But that is exactly where Robin Pecknold, lead singer of the indie-folk band Fleet Foxes, headed.

Five years ago—one year after Fleet Foxes released their second album, “Helplessness Blues”—a then 26-year-old Pecknold enrolled in Columbia University as an undergraduate English major. And it’s showing. In June of this year the five-piece Fleet Foxes released their third full-length album, “Crack-Up.” The album regularly references heroes and villains from ancient texts like “Beowulf,” and the title itself is a reference to the 1936 essay by F. Scott Fitzgerald of the same name.

While “Crack-Up” is moodier than a Columbia English major and sifts the listener through a haze so textured it will make you see shadows in 3D, it is also full of the harmonies and moments of brightness that Fleet Foxes have created as part of their characteristic “sound.” Pecknold and the band might be grappling with life’s great questions and contradictions, but they’re doing so with the sunrise-like ability to lift their listeners from darkness into a fresh new day.

On August 16 and 17 Fleet Foxes roll through Austin for two shows at ACL Live at The Moody Theater. Even if a 2,700+ capacity theater isn’t exactly where you’d expect to quench your soul, we have confidence in Pecknold and Fleet Foxes to bring you peace amid chaos. And to put on a great show.

_{Read more from the Makers Issue | August 2017}