When I first started to write album reviews on Tuppence I kind of chose not to write too much in the way of bad reviews, but for Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues I’ve got no choose. When an album came along that I didn’t particularly like in the past I just ignored it, but when I heard that there was going to be a new Fleet Foxes album I was sort of looking forward to writing about it. It just so happens that it’s not good.
The music itself has got a lot of potential, but it’s just turned out a little uninspiring because it lacks any level of inventiveness. There’s just not enough hook to bring you into its soaked sounds. Nothing about it makes you want to listen to more, and that’s a bit of a shame, because their previous album, Fleet Foxes, had an opposite effect, especially White Winter Hymnal, Ragged Wood and Meadowlarks.
Montezuma opens up OK, one of the better tracks on the album, but fails to impress, and it takes a dull slump with Bedouin Dress and Sim Sala Bim. The folk-pop just seems to have gone flat. Battery Kinzie is listenable but that can’t necessarily be said for The Plains / Bitter Dancer, which is an empty ahahhhahhhhh of a song.
There’s a bit more pace in the title track, Helplessness Blues, and it’s definitely better off for it. It’s about as good as it gets for Fleet Foxes second album. However, The Cascades, Lorelai and the shanty Someone You’d Admire come in to slowly let the balloon down without a hint of cheer. It’s a trend that continues to the end of the album, with a nothing finish in Grown Ocean.
Helplessness Blues is just a bit uninteresting, but the truth is that its got more than enough pieces of note to have worked; it just sounds like it got put together wrong.
Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues album review: 1.8/5
