Just the other day, and friend and I were discussing Fleet Foxes, and how now that they’ve let nearly three years pass between their much-adored debut and its follow-up, there’s basically no way they won’t experience something of a let down when their second album does finally come out. Now I don’t know, though. It’s entirely possible that we are stupid and that they won’t experience anything of the sort. Because this morning, the good people at Sub Pop have announced that on May 3rd, the band will release Helplessness Blues, the title-track from which is now available (after the jump) and is super, super awesome, in all the same ways their first batch of songs were awesome, only with a freshly added Simon and Garfunkel vibe and lyrics like “I was raised up believing i was somehow unique, like a snowflake, distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see, and now after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery, serving something beyond me/But I don’t know what that will be/I’ll get back to you some day soon, you will see.”
In other Fleet Foxes news, the band has announced a string of North American tour dates, which will bring them into our neck of the woods on May 18 for a show at the United Palace Theater. Tickets are on sale this Friday.
And finally, in sort of related news, just last night I was watching something on the Food Network (or its hipper younger brother The Cooking Channel), and I saw a segment about Mast Brothers Chocolate in Williamsburg, the owners of which totally look like they could be in Fleet Foxes.
that’s crazy Simon & Garfunkel-y