"What's my name, what's my station? Oh just tell me what I should do."
The fear I had with the new Fleet Foxes album was that it couldn't live up to either the hype or its predecessor. From the second I heard a leaked copy of the first track, 'Montezuma', I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I'm still not sure if it's quite as magical as the debut was but it's a real good record, nonetheless.
Title track 'Helplessness Blues' is probably my standout. Both lyrically and thematically as well as musically. Is it better to be unique - but alone - "like a snowflake", or just "a functioning cog in some great machinery", with all the communal benefits that brings? As great as the first album certainly is, the existential challenges sure weren't hitting too hard back then.
