The long-awaited comeback album from these pioneers of the early 2000’s American indie rock syndicate is here, and nominated for a grammy nonetheless.
As a kid growing up in the early 2000s, the sounds of The Shins and Death Cab For Cutie were omnipresent in the car rides of my youth. Among these contemporaries, the light yet lugubrious sounds of the Seattle-based band Fleet Foxes radiated warmth through the radio. Yet no album released by them thus far has epitomized or accurately captured amber colored gratitude or good-vibes quite like Shore with signature style and grace. This is a feat various bands and artists in the genre grasp at, but few can hold onto for long.
Since their primordial conception, the band has been noted for their mellifluous harmonies, distinctive earthy-folk guitar and mature lyricism. Lead singer Robin Pecknold and guitarist Skyler Skjelset bonded in high school over a mutual love of Bob Dylan and Neil Young. The two began making music shortly after, originally performing under the name “The Pineapples.” Soon discovered by a Seattle producer who assisted the recording of their first demo, the self-titled self-released Fleet Foxes would become their first full-length album in 2008. The band garnered a considerable amount of popularity by the year 2007, attracting more than a quarter million listens in the Myspace circuit. This attention helped secure a record deal with Sub Pop in 2008, releasing their second EP, Sun Giant. From the start they were well received by critics, their first album was praised and touted as “an instant classic” by venerable media outlets like The Guardian. That same year, Fleet Foxes went no.1 on the CMJ Radio 200 Chart and was ranked album of the year by Billboard’s Critic’s Choice. The band was immensely successful in Europe and beyond, selling out music venues in Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. Their second album, Helplessness Blues, moved away from pop friendly melodies and took an overarching less upbeat turn. The album secured a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album in 2012, preceding a brief hiatus taken by Pecknold from 2012-2016 as he pursued an undergraduate degree at Columbia. In 2016, the bands third studio album Crack-Up was released, perhaps their most ambitious album with the average song clocking in at 5 minutes, it signaled an increasing complexity of their sound and depth.
Shore stays true to form, transforming Pecknold’s prototypical anxiety and existential grievances into tracks that soar, with the same musical ingenuity and unique fusion similar to that of Dave Matthews or Björk. The difference perhaps is how prevalently Pecknold continues a conversation with listeners and himself, posited by albums of the past. The beauty on Shore never falters, it feels like the model marriage between the complexity of Crack-Up and pleasant youthful urgency of Fleet Foxes. The first song on the album, “Wading in Waist-High Water ” taps the voice of Uwade Akhere, an unknown singer Pecknold began collaborating with after coming across a clip of her singing one of their hit songs, “Mykonos.” This is one of many new collaborations Pecknold featured on the album, alongside Grizzly Bear’s members Christopher Bear (drummer) and Daniel Rossen (co-lead vocalist), drummers Homer Steinweiss (The Dap-Kings) and Joshua Jaeger (collaborates with Angel Olsen). In Shore’s artist statement, Pecknold states that “the studio albums have always been predominantly my work and my vision; I’ve always handled all the songwriting, most of the vocals and harmonies, and most of the recording of the instrumentation.” This explains the noteworthy absence of the bands other four members – Skyler Skjelset, Morgan Henderson, Casey Wescott and Christian Wargo – alluding to their role more as tourmates than anything else.
The first song Pecknold sings is the track followed by the former, effortlessly transitioning into “Sunblind.” He declaims the names of departed musical heroes, showcasing glistening gratitude, “For Richard Swift…I’m overmatched (for Arthur Russel).” The chorus then bursts into light commemoration: “I’m going out for a weekend/I’m gonna borrow a Martin or Gibson’ With Either/Or and The Hex for my Bookends.” Among the references to Simon and Garfunkel and Eliott Smith, another one of Pecknold’s musical inspirations, Silver Jews album Warm American Water joins the choral repetition. According to an interview Pecknold gave to Rolling Stone “That chorus is saying I’m going to live as best I can, in thanks to these people, because they can’t, or they couldn’t. It’s zeroing in this idea of gratitude just to be alive. I’m so lucky.” That feeling of gratitude is pervasive throughout Shore, a loving epistle to the music and artists that moved him; filled with contentment for living life, when so many have been lost these past two years; as well as gorgeous musings about the duality of life and death, and what awaits those who have to cope. This is succeeded by the ‘Heart of Gold’-esque pursuit of love and inquiry into the complicated nature of trust on “Can I Believe You.”
One of the songs which directly engages with the evocative political unrest in 2020 is the synthesized staccato track “Jara.” Pecknold uses the Chilean protest singer Victor Jara as a vehicle to explore the manifestations of injustice he perceived around him. He wrote the song with those tackling activism against racism and oppression in mind, equating them to personal Victor Jara’s all around him. Following the bright murmurs of “Jara” enters the first minor-key track on the album, “Featherweight.” This showcases a commonality on Shore, the reflections and ruminations of an older, wiser Pecknold. He is on the journey of self-acceptance & self-reliance, shedding the ideals, Snows of Mount Kilimanjaro-esque creative anxieties and naivety of his youth: “All this time I’ve been hanging on/ To an edge I caught when we both were young.” Addressing the tumultuous political climate of 2020 once more, he feels a degree of optimism: “Feel some change in the weather/ I couldn’t, though I’m beginning to.” In the end, “One warm day is all I really need”, a somewhat contradictory statement in the overarching narrative presented to us, considering the following track, sunny and riddled with nostalgia, “A Long Way Past the Past” ends with an uncertain “I’ll be better off in a year or in two.”
“For a Week or Two” is perhaps the album’s most tranquil track, evoking stunning yet simple imagery of the lightness and peace one feels when close to nature in solitude, simply existing – que birds chirping. “Maestranza” has a playful, layered instrumental palette including diminished chords among the varied progressions that teeter between major and minor. Continuing to lean into the motif of hope, the song brightly encourages optimism and yearns for change from the era when “Con-men controlled my fate.” In an interview with Entertainment Weekly Pecknold said “It’s trying to be an encouraging song, because the last few years, it’s been kind of a con man’s era. There’s been a lot of people trying to pull the wool over our eyes, not just in politics but also technology and media. Maybe we’re going to be entering this era where that’s no longer the case.”
Perhaps the most radiant rockin moment on the album, “Young Man’s Game” is the exhale to Pecknold’s tight-chested inhale over the past decade, highlighted on previous tracks such as “Fool’s Errand” (Crack-Up) where Pecknold laments his ultimate universal insignificance with an ironically upbeat melody as if to signal acceptance of this reality; while simultaneously recognizing attempts to change this would end in futile frustration. “Young Man’s Game” offers a more critical yet light response to these queries of his youth. Glad he’s matured past immature delusions and the trappings of a ‘young man’s game’: “I could dress as Arthur Lee…Maybe read Ulysses/ But it’s a young man’s game…I could worry through each night/Find something unique to say/I could pass as erudite/But it’s a young man’s game.”
“I’m Not My Season” posits the dichotomy between summer and winter, and the experiences those two seasons encompass as a means for exploring the essence of time, relationships and the ephemerality of beauty: “Though I liked summer light on you/If we ride a winter-long wind/Well time’s not what I belong to/And I’m not the season I’m in.” The lyrics take a back seat in “Quiet Air/Gioia”, the song is embroidered with layers of instrumentation, glossy harmonies and a strong bass riff that take center stage. It induces a kind of ambient, rave-like stupor. The melodic composition in “Going-to-the-Sun-Road” evokes rolling, sumptuous, verdant greenery you would see peering out the window with open road in front of you. The Sun Road is a seasonal 60-mile stretch of road in Montana, a metaphor for that last adventure you strive towards after all the rest are done. Pecknold extended the original running time of the song to include a Portuguese verse from Brazilian singer Tim Bernardes.
“Thymia ” concentrates on the most personal aspect of Shore, the love affair between Pecknold and music. Driving around, we hear the music in a “Pair of tin cups rolling in the backseat/Rustle like a mallet on a downbeat.” Pecknold is able to find the music in everything, carrying this intangible sixth sense within that grounds him, a watermark throughout time that is obvious in his musical trajectory: “Solid shape of, known it for a long time/Never failed us, even losing daylight.” Pecknold’s grand finale, “Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman” is a battle of horns, strings, pianos and guitars competing with each other’s individual rhythms, ultimately creating a cathartic symphony of chaos with gorgeous lyricism to boot. Inspired by Brian Wilson, Pecknold sampled his voice on this track from ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)’, claiming “As a teenager, I would listen to this clip for hours on end, amazed at what you were building with just your voice. This clip, more than any other piece of music, completely changed and guided my life.” The final track is the albums namesake, which is only fitting as “Shore” ties up any loose ends in the overall conversation, punctuating Pecknold’s exploration of gratitude which looms large over Shore. The violent and calm duality of the sea is Pecknold’s inspiration, drawing upon the metaphor to showcase the fluidity of the times, with comfort and uncertainty. “This song is expressing gratitude towards my family and friends and heroes for everything that they’ve given me as a person. And then back in the water, the music goes to this really wild place where the syllables of every word are pulling apart from each other. There’s chaos beneath the sea and then you rise back up and you’re floating on calm water.”
Shore exemplifies the highest quality ‘sign of the times’ art one would expect to emerge from an unparalleled time of tragedy and uncertainty such as the past two years. It tackles the issues of our time with lyrical finesse and a sound which ascends above it all, providing the lofty look back into this time and ourselves that we needed.
