Fleet Foxes: Crack-Up Album Review
In the six years since Fleet Foxes’ last album, their former drummer has eclipsed them in the public eye by embracing a flamboyant persona fluent in sex, drugs, self-awareness, and sarcasm, like a not-so-subtle referendum on his previous gig. None of Josh Tillman’s jokes have been crueler than the unmistakable alliteration embedded in the title of the first Father John Misty album: Fear Fun . Considering the lengths folkies like Tillman, Justin Vernon, and Marcus Mumford have gone to ensure their beards no longer speak on their behalf, it’s all the more amazing that Robin Pecknold hasn’t tried to counteract the earnest, unglamorous perception of him and Fleet Foxes. He has actually embraced it. While Fleet Foxes’ music has grown increasingly more complex and less crowd-pleasing, Pecknold’s personal trajectory has strangely aged in reverse—the old-soul serenity of Fleet Foxes gave way to the post-grad anxieties of Helplessness Blues , and now we...