Crack-Up

AlbumJun 16 / 201711 songs, 55m 6s
Progressive Folk Chamber Folk
Popular Highly Rated

After a six-year break during which frontman Robin Pecknold vanished to the Washington woods then reappeared as a college student in New York, Fleet Foxes return with a fresh sense of purpose. Expanding on the harmony-driven sound of their first two albums, *Crack-Up* boasts both pretty, straightforward folk tunes (“Naiads, Cassadies,” “Fool’s Errand”) and sprawling, suite-like explorations (“Third of May / Odaigahara,” “I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar”) that are at once comforting and quietly avant-garde. It’s a balance that allows the band’s natural sweetness—and wild ambition—to shine.

Crack-Up, Fleet Foxes' long-awaited and highly anticipated third album, comes six years after the release of Helplessness Blues and nearly a decade since the band's self-titled debut. "Rewarding, involving, and meticulous," says the AP, "Crack-Up has been well worth the wait." "Likely to be the most remarkable album you will hear this year," exclaims the Times (UK). "The return of one of the most original bands of this century." Pitchfork calls it "their most complex and compelling album to date."

8.7 / 10

The band’s third album is their most complex and compelling to date. Robin Pecknold’s songwriting retreats inward while around him dense folk compositions rise and fall on a massive scale.

F

It’s been six years since Fleet Foxes’ last record, and in the meantime, frontman Robin Pecknold has been up to plenty. First he marched straight into the world of academia, enrolling at Columbia University before taking a step back, trading college for cabins. He took a 12-week woodworking course. He practiced both…

8 / 10

8 / 10

For the most part, attempting to navigate the unpredictable twists and turns of Fleet Foxes' third album makes for a compelling listen.

After a six-year hiatus, Seattle folk-rock institution Fleet Foxes are back with a profoundly ambitious third album

8.1 / 10

A lovely, strange and generous, and ultimately very welcome return for the Seattle band.

Fleet Foxes venture into fresh territory on this expansive comeback

Out take on the latest from the coffee-shop heroes, returning from a six-year hiatus.

A beautifully produced, cinematic masterpiece.

The Fleet Foxes we already know but on a much, much bigger scale.

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9 / 10

Robin Pecknold's Fleet Foxes are back with another gorgeous, unique album that balances profundity and earnestness.   The band's sonic exp...

8.5 / 10

When Fleet Foxes first appeared on the music scene, it was like they'd walked out of their own time and space and arrived in 2008 fully formed.

7 / 10

After a five-year hiatus caused by the same internal fractures that fired Father John Misty off into the stratosphere, Fleet Foxes have returned with the

(Nonesuch)

7 / 10

'Crack-Up' is the first album from Fleet Foxes in six years, and it's the sound of a band - led by Robin Pecknold - evolving but not transforming.

Crack-Up takes contrasting musical ideas and textures and makes them functional, if not transcendent.

9 / 10

7.0 / 10

The band’s third album is alternately intriguing and irritating, garlanded with wonderful orchestrations, gorgeous melodies … and their trademark pretensions

70 %

Sometimes suffers at the hands of its many fraught layers.

Album Reviews: Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up

5.0 / 5

Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up review: Fleet Foxes get even more ambitious, and in the process establish themselves as possibly the greatest indie-folk act of the decade.

FLEET FOXESCrack-Up, 3Nonesuch Records

8 / 10