A harmonious evening from upstart Fleet Foxes
CAMBRIDGE - Robin Pecknold, the lead singer for the folk-pop outfit Fleet Foxes, can't be blamed for looking a bit beleaguered by the time he took the stage. Fresh from a flight home to Seattle, the band put any jetlag - and Pecknold's recurring illness - behind it for a sold-out set at the Middle East Upstairs Monday.
New critical darlings, Fleet Foxes are indebted to the Beach Boys and, in a more modern sense, My Morning Jacket, layering thick multi-part harmonies around traditional folk song structures. The songs harken to the great outdoors, evoking Pacific Northwest imagery like towering redwoods and salmon-filled rapids. On its recent Sub Pop debut, the quintet sounds more suited for an elegant cathedral than a rock club, but it used the tiny room's acoustics to its advantage.
A cappella opener "Sun Giant" was a somber celebration of seasons. "What a life I lead in the summer/What a life I lead in the spring/What a life I lead in the winded breeze," Pecknold sang.
The Foxes followed up with "Sun It Rises," whose four-part harmonies swelled and eventually buckled under drummer Josh Tillman's ballooning percussion. Tillman, a recent addition to the band, was a commanding presence whether hunched over the drum set or striking a lone tambourine.
Pecknold, however, was the real treat, leading his bandmates through triumphant, golden harmonies, all while shrouded behind his acoustic guitar. Squinting through the club's red light, Pecknold sang earnestly about valleys and oceans. At 21, he sounded as if he had lived in the woods all his life.
"White Winter Hymnal," an in-the-round highlight from the album, didn't skimp on the 'oohs' and prompted raucous applause from the audience. Pecknold seemed genuinely humbled to elicit such a response, self-effacingly nodding his head and casting uneasy smiles intermittently around the room.
Save for a solo Judee Sill cover ("Crayon Angels") and the plaintive, stripped-down "Oliver James," the night thrived on orchestration. The set's penultimate number, "Blue Ridge Mountains," was driven by Rhodes piano and stray mandolin plucks while the altogether sublime "He Doesn't Know Why" built up a heavenly melody alongside Tillman's crashing cymbals.
Openers the Dutchess and the Duke flirted with harmonies to a lesser extent, playing a ramshackle set of scratchy folk-rock short on luster but with enough dueling boy-girl vocals to keep the crowd at bay.
