Crack‐Up
A dense, labyrinthine journey of shifting dynamics and oceanic depth. Fleet Foxes swap their sunny pastoral harmonies for fractured, symphonic art-folk.
A dense, labyrinthine journey of shifting dynamics and oceanic depth. Fleet Foxes swap their sunny pastoral harmonies for fractured, symphonic art-folk.
Ambitious reconstruction
A heavy swell of woodwinds and acoustic guitars constantly shifts beneath these songs, pulling you from quiet, whispered verses into sudden, crashing waves of brass. The bright, sunny harmonies of their past are gone, replaced by a dark, labyrinthine forest of sound that feels both cold to the touch and deeply alive.
An overwhelming sense of solitude anchors the record, wrapping the listener in a cold, oceanic isolation that feels far more vast and desolate than the band's typical rustic warmth.
Widely admired for its shifting, immersive soundscapes and introspective songwriting, the album was praised as a highly ambitious and complex effort. Reviewers warmly embraced the balance of delicate vocal harmonies with a denser, more expansive approach to folk production, noting a renewed energy in the band's craft.
“Crack-Up sounds like an artist trying to figure out where he stands and why he’s standing there”Read review
“Melodies as miraculous as White Winter Hymnal, Mykonos or Battery Kinzie are in short supply here, but moments of the old magic remain”Read review
“Some may be unconvinced by the ambitious leap Fleet Foxes have made on album three, but there’s really no doubting the first-rate intelligence behind this uncompromising and ever-changing piece of work”Read review
“Tracks wash together, song titles abound with opaque punctuation, and the sweeping melodies often wander into moody places, away from the safety of the campfire”Read review
“If ’Fleet Foxes’ was an unbroken hike up from the foothills into the peaks of the Appalachians, ’Crack-Up’ is more like the winding train ride home”Read review
“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”Read review
“Immersive, shifting creations”Read review
“Masterfully navigating between dark and light, quiet and loud, sparse and lush, Crack-Up takes contrasting musical ideas and textures and makes them functional, if not transcendent”Read review
“Crack-Up is an album about purpose, mutual support and reconciliation, nowhere better expressed than in “Third Of May/Odaigahara”, the complex, nine-minute song quixotically chosen as the first single”Read review
“Luscious harmonies and lyrical heaviness”Read review
“Distinctive, involving, challenging, accessible, progressive and most other things that continue to be desirable in an indie-rock record”Read review
“Orchestral, experimental, and more challenging than either of the band’s previous releases, it’s a natural fit for the Nonesuch label, whose heritage was built on such attributes”Read review
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