17.
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes

This really shouldn’t be my bag: effeminate harmonisation, country-folk and a definite whiff of religion, Seattle’s Fleet Foxes should have me running as quickly as I can away from them (though I guess they could catch up with me, being fleet an’ all…). For some reason, though, it all works, and the result is a compelling and beautiful album of simple folk ballads. ‘White Winter Hymnal’ builds into a wonderful sing-a-long that I can’t help but (badly) join in with every time I play it. ‘He Doesn’t Know Why’ is a perfect slice of melancholic bittersweetness, and album closer – and standout track – ‘Oliver James’ is catchier than a fish in a box. The sort of album that if I’d only heard it once, I’d file it as ‘twee crap’; in fact this is brilliant, albeit quite different from most of what I played in 2008.