I thought the first album was pleasant but dull and I think this album is great

I'm hoping it will grow on me, and I kind of expect it to, at least a little bit.

did you really? any particular reason dude?

I can still have a drink of whiskey, gin, rum etc., but no more than that. Actually, I should clarify that I've effectively quit drinking all spirits beyond the 6 oz point and no more than a few beer at a time over a long consumption period. I just couldn't take the physical and spiritual death that follows the next day.

That being said, I'm still a fairly heavy consumer of red wine.

I'm right there with you. Wine, 4 beer minimum, and on the rare occasion, a scotch or 2. Last few hangovers were just brutal.

4 beer minimum? "If I drink one, I gotta have three more. No exceptions."

This has been me for a few years going. Mostly wine, no beer, and very few moments of rum, whiskey/bourbon or scotch in there. I still gotta have my Manhattan in fall and winter once now and then.

That is my rule. This evening being Friday, I usually have 2 double rum & cokes between 3 & 5 pm. Sometimes they're both consumed by 330pm, sometimes not not until 430pm. The rules are flexible but never broken. After that, I consume red the rest of the evening, but must stop by 1145pm if I want to get up at a decent hour. This are my Drinking Alone rules for a Friday. Saturday is considerably loose in terms of personal accountability, allotting for Bailey's and coffee in the morning or White Russians in the afternoon etc. When company is over, there is a further flexibility option that I can invoke. Behaviourism at its best.

scotch
then wine
then scotch or beer
and weed

while having beer and doobs last night, i decided to purchase both records, the 2LPs were going for $16.99, and i grabbed em. sounds like honey at home.

man, the vinyl package is fucking sweet. the cover is nice and heavy, 180 vinyl, and love the typography on the poster.

this my friend should be printed on a poster, and every man should live by it.

ive completely given up beer. only drink whiskey and red wine now (pretty much). beer just gives me the worst fucking hangovers.

even the sleeves are nice

The CD has a pretty big poster in it, but I sort of don't give a shit.

i went to a party on saturday and someone talked to me about this for a while. their one point was that the first listen should be through my best headphones ("not your regular speakers or earbuds"), so i took that advice and thought the first half was really strong before tanking. today i listened to it on earbuds and thought the back half really wasn't that bad. so i guess i need to give it another spin on my regular speakers to get the full effect. oh, and "montezuma" is an excellent opener.

I'll second this.

I've tried every which way to find the appeal of these guys, concluding with seeing them last night with a packed house giving off a religious fervor about them. Just not my thing

By Chad Swiatecki

I’ve never been the church-going type - baptized Catholic and jumped the tracks soon after - but in my former life as a daily newspaper reporter I spent plenty a Sunday morning in the pews for newsworthy religious services across the whole spectrum of denominations. High-profile funerals, politicians stumping before elections, final worship at a historic church that was closing, those types of things.

I always liked working a story involving a Baptist congregation. Those were rock ‘n’ roll with robes and a collection plate and had the guts that made me admit to myself, “If I ever become a believer, this is the house for me.” Think of the James Brown-as-a-pastor scene in “The Blues Brothers,” only with no trace of Hollywood buffoonery. It’s why I’ve said with some frequency that the post-Sept. 11 service at El-Bethel Evangelistic Baptist Church in Flint, Mich. is one of the best live performances I’ve ever seen in coming up on two decades of going to concerts. Didn’t matter that it wasn’t a proper concert - the passion and intensity was so undeniable, you felt something profound that day that stayed with you even if you’re a flatline cynic like me.

The services I dreaded the most? Pentecostals, no question. Dry as old toast, I’d gulp down a couple mugs of coffee beforehand to stay alert, and even then had to catch myself from staring as I looked at rows of face-forward, wide-eyed believers taking in every syllable in a sanctuary so aggressively quiet that a pin dropping would’ve sounded like a hammer. Nice, helpful and caring folks, every one of them, but it just took vastly different spiritual voices to move us. As long as we accepted that schism everything was fine - and most did, especially since as a reporter I had no personal stake - but every so often I’d run into a churchgoer who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and wouldn’t rest until I’d thought hard (or pretended to) about joining the flock. Those run-ins were enough to turn me back off and look askance at the whole lot of them.

All of that said to get to this; Fleet Foxes live are like a Pentecostal megachurch service. From up top at Stubb’s on Tuesday night, the sold-out, rain-dampened crowd was marked by a sea of wide, anticipating eyes atop mouths yelling “I love you!” to lead singer/guitarist Robin Pecknold before he’d even picked up his instrument. And once the whole six-piece band started in with their double helix vocal harmonies and mountain folk accompaniments there weren’t many in the house not singing rapturously along with “Mykonos,” “Tiger Mountain Peasant” or any of the roughly 20 songs on the set list.

By this point it should be obvious that Fleet Foxes aren’t at the podium in my rock ‘n roll house of worship (I’m a Saint Joe Strummer man, always have been) but Tuesday night was my attempt at trying to get right with the hordes of true believers I’ve encountered since the Seattle band broke big a couple years ago, only to be mostly unmoved and confused by the devotion every time I’ve strapped on the headphones and later be called a borderline heretic when I responded with an “I don’t get it.” Live they definitely had their moments, there’s no denying that; “Your Protector” came with lots of added menace the band lacks on record, and there’s no denying the power of “White Winter Hymnal” once the four vocal parts lock in and keep lifting each other higher higher higher. After those passages the rattling cheers provided by the crowd weren’t just understandable, but natural and obvious.

But most of the rest left me with the same feeling I’ve had from the start with this band; pretty and created with utmost care and passion but coming up too short in the “guts” department for me to do much more than nod along politely. About an hour in it was pretty clear that this is a band too far for me so I headed to a prior engagement down the block, glad I’d made the effort to see the light and alright with the fact that it just doesn’t want to shine on me. If it’s your thing then have at it, but please don’t get uptight and defensive (as seems to happen with this band - a lot) to those who politely say “Thanks, but no.” We’ve got different sermons to take in, and some of them sound a lot more like what you get at Stubb’s Sunday gospel brunch.

this is kinda where i'm at. right after "The Plains/Bitter Dancer" I lose interest. I'm trying to find some potential in the latter half but it's not jumping out at me. This all being said, I'll take a Fleet Foxes album (a half-good one at that) over a lot of other modern Americana crap that's been floating to the top in recent years.

this was pretty but quite a bore.

I can definitely still see why people don't like this band or would think it a bore, but this release just has something that similar sounding releases don't - makes it really exciting.

Holy shit that's a terrible response

seeing them tonight at the Ryman. My expectations are low, even though they were pretty good live when they played the 500 capacity Exit/In last time through town.

EDIT: 5/14/11 - soooo... Nashville LOVES Fleet Foxes. I haven't seen such an overwhelmingly supportive and enthusiastic crowd response at the Ryman since last year's Arcade Fire show. Cave Singers were really great live. I'd definitely go see them again. They heated up the crowd and created a lot of sound for a trio of only guitar, drums and vocals. Last night was a good show and the texture of Fleet Foxes' new songs came out last night. I'm going to guess their new album should be listened to on headphones or a nice stereo, as my computer and car speaker listening didn't reveal everything contained in the new songs.