Right now, the world needs Fleet Foxes more than ever. The American indie-folk outfit fronted by Robin Pecknold specialise in delivering shiny, shimmery laidback songs that take your cares away. The perfect antidote, then, to all this 2020 nonsense.

True, their last album – 2017’s Crack-Up – marked a slight, albeit temporary change in direction. It was a darker, starker and more complex album both lyrically and musically than we’d become accustomed to from Fleet Foxes, dealing as it did with difficult themes, both personal and those relating to the unsettling times it was released into.

Shore, though, is a welcome return to the sound we know and love. Wading In Waist-High Water is a gentle opener that bleeds into Sunblind, another cheery affair, before Can I Believe You takes the feelgood into overdrive with a jaunty melody and absorbing harmonies that take the song to a glorious crescendo.

Following Manic Street Preachers’ frontman James Dean Bradfield’s solo concept album dedicated to Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter and communist activist Victor Jara that was released earlier this year, there’s another nod to the figure here on Jara, while American cellist, composer, producer, singer, and musician Arthur Russell gets a nod on Sunblind.

Featherweight, For A Week Or Two, and I’m Not My Season offer rare moments of quiet. They are subdued and introspective, while the likes of Young Man’s Game, Quiet Air / Gioia and Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman overflow with youthful exuberance.

The album – a surprise release that arrived on the dot of the autumn equinox – is also autumnal in feeling. Warm and sunny in places, darker and greyer in others, but always swathed in colour. It’s a delightful record from a group who continue to lead their field.

Watch the lyric video for Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman here.

Shore tracklist:

1. Wading In Waist-High Water

2. Sunblind

3. Can I Believe You

4. Jara

5. Featherweight

6. A Long Way Past The Past

7. For A Week Or Two

8. Maestranza

9. Young Man’s Game

10. I’m Not My Season

11. Quiet Air / Gioia

12. Going-To-The-Sun Road

13. Thymia

14. Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman

15. Shore

Author: Joe Sharratt

Joe Sharratt is a writer and journalist based in the UK covering music, literature, sport, and travel.