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May 4, 2011Wide-eyed self-searching is this record's predominant mode, which Fleet Foxes do both lyrically and sonically, reveling in the process of discovery.
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MojoMay 3, 2011This album is destined to redraw the parameters, thanks to its sheer scale and detail, its recurring themes and imagery, and its creators' refusal to settle for less than they could achieve. [June 2011, p. 90]
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Apr 29, 2011With Helplessness Blues, Fleet Foxes triumphantly deliver on the promise of their popular debut, the album that helped establish folk-rock once again as a formidable commercial force rather than just a fringe interest.
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Apr 29, 2011So it comes as no surprise that the harmonic progression does not cadence as the listener might expect; the ear wants one more chord, but Pecknold and his backup singers simply end. There's nothing more to say.
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May 3, 2011Fleet Foxes have become a band who will not stop pushing, who will challenge themselves to avoid stagnancy, who will work with both their instruments and their minds. Because of that, the audience is able to reap the fruit and feast on it together.
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May 3, 2011No matter who appreciates or appropriates this music, who likes it or where you discover it, it is a testament to its power more than its populism.
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Jun 30, 2011The words are as woodsy and quaint as ever. Pecknold seems to take his inspiration from classic British poetry, and rarely refers to objects, characters, or events that would place him in the 21st century, relying instead on imagery like old stone fountains, seeds, keys, sand, and the night sky.
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May 5, 2011The album's diversity is certainly key and essential to its value but for some it might lie entirely in Pecknold's flawless voice.
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May 4, 2011It's an album that makes you sad that it's not longer; sad that it can't just go on forever. This sentiment alone should indicate the caliber of album Fleet Foxes have created in Helplessness Blues.
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May 4, 2011Musically, the hooks are softer, the arrangements more ambitious, and 1960s British psychedelic folk (Fairport Convention, Vashti Bunyan, Pentangle) a far more palpable influence than the Americana that fueled the band's 2008 debut.
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May 4, 2011For now, Pecknold and his bandmates are important cogs in the indie-music scene - with a few more albums akin to Helplessness Blues under their belts, they may soon fit just as nicely into the canon of American folk music.
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May 2, 2011Helplessness Blues sees the band finally reach the top of Barringer Hill and set off in majestic flight over the sunshine blessed countryside.
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May 2, 2011Helplessness Blues succeeds because Fleet Foxes find a way to consistently balance the added level of nuance with their natural inclinations toward epic songcraft.
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May 2, 2011It may be his own manifesto, but when the music is this striking, it makes you appreciate life more.
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May 16, 2011For all of the baggage that comes included with Helplessness Blues, it is still a relaxing, folk-y Fleet Foxes record.
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May 3, 2011In its best moments, "Helplessness Blues" sparkles like some sort of divine plan, but a plan that knows the value of mistakes, surprises and even regret.
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May 2, 2011Helplessness Blues' analytical and inquisitive nature never tips into self-indulgence.
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Apr 29, 2011In striving for more self-less version of self, Pecknold and his excellent band have made an album that embraces modesty.
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Apr 29, 2011Only in closer Grown Ocean, with crashing cymbals and trilling woodwinds, do you get a sense that Fleet Foxes are actively trying to impress you. Even then, though, you're impressed all the same.
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Q MagazineMay 31, 2011Both mysterious and inviting, Helplessness Blues retains and expands what made the debut so special. It's an open door to a private world. [Jun 2011, p.108]
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UncutMay 19, 2011Helplessness Blues is as passionately desolate as anything on Closer, the record which documented Ian Curtis' romantic guilt and existential confusion. [Jun 2011, p.74]
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May 3, 2011So if there's one thing Helplessness Blues confirms, it's that he and his band are innovative and dynamic, capable of making music that rises above the disposability of the digital age and lasts a good long while.
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May 3, 2011Pecknold enthusiastically revealed how the album was a direct result of his indulgence in MP3 piracy, as he tracked back to discover Fairport Convention, Roy Harper, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and all the heroes of the Sixties folk boom.
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May 2, 2011Helpnessness Blues is, like its predecessor, archaic and pastoral to the last.
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May 2, 2011From the vocal harmonies to the steel guitars, tympani, and winds, Fleet Foxes continue to give rich and varied textures to their consistently tight harmonic structures and memorable melodies.
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May 2, 2011On Helplessness Blues, he's just as interested in the landscape of the human heart. Still, it's the music that stands out, and the band's acoustic folk/chamber pop combo makes every song sound like a grand tribute to back-to-the-land living.
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May 2, 2011The result is almost laughably beautiful.
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May 2, 2011Though born out of a fraught gestation period, this second LP is a thing of beauty.
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May 2, 2011Fleet Foxes might have put a lot of worry into the making of Helplessness Blues, but thankfully it was worth it.
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May 2, 2011Too young to have experienced the era he holds so dear, Pecknold has found refuge and inspiration in the echoes.
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May 2, 2011Far from that folksy, laid-back image, Helplessness Blues confirms Fleet Foxes' place as one of the most exacting, creative, and straight-up best bands making music in 2011.
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Apr 29, 2011In between the soul-searching, Fleet Foxes cranks out some pretty great singalong songs. And that's what it's all about, isn't it?
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May 16, 2011It comes down to what you're expecting here. Do you earnestly yearn for another album full of beautifully arranged, meticulously pored over harmonic acoustic folk? Then this is probably your album of the year to beat.
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May 13, 2011Robin Pecknold's well-chronicled bout with writer's block and three years later, Helplessness Blues has arrived, and the good news is that it unquestionably sounds like a Fleet Foxes record-which is to say: warm and exquisitely pretty.
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May 11, 2011No doubt Helplessness Blues will win Pecknold further fame and success, whether he likes it or not.
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May 3, 2011Fleet Foxes mostly seem content to plug away at the atmosphere established on their debut. The big question on "Helplessness Blues'' isn't where the songs will go, but how much distanced reverb will be featured on any given cut.
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May 3, 2011Wistful and plaintive, solemn yet blissful, these are songs from another time - if not another planet - and their mesmerising melodies have the powerful ability to transport you, temporally and spatially, into the band's anachronistic, peaceful, eternal summer.
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Jun 9, 2011Where its predecessor corralled modern versions of The Canterbury Tales that the band's foxhunting moniker continues to evoke, Pecknold's Helplessness relies on a suitelike flow in the absence of greatest hits.
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Apr 29, 2011On Helplessness Blues, their second disc of intimate, obsessively crafted folk, the bearded Seattleites take a giant step forward in their quest to turn the clock backward.
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May 13, 2011While Helplessness Blues is sparser and more restrained than its predecessor, it's also spotted by unexpected flourishes that are almost experimental by the band's traditionalist standard.
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May 20, 2011His guttural howl on The Shrine/An Argument is the only moment when Helplessness Blues snaps out of its preciousness and hints that this genre can be more than a soundtrack to brunch.
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May 2, 2011They peddle the same sort of fake-rustic rootsiness that seems to be colonising our era: all these flatpack off-the-peg dreams of Ruritania that iPad-stashing mid-lifes have taken up as a counterpoint to their rabid technophilia.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 227 out of 245
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Mixed: 11 out of 245
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Negative: 7 out of 245
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May 5, 2011
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May 3, 2011
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May 3, 2011