Relying on obscure instrumentation can be a dangerous game, and Fleet Foxes occasionally run the risk of sounding too clever for their own good, as if the need to "out-folk" groups like Mumford & Sons and Midlake is more important than writing memorable, articulate folk tunes.
It's still a downright gorgeous record, though, filled to the brim with glee club harmonies and the sort of stringed instruments that are virtually unknown to anyone who didn't go to music school (and even if you did, when's the last time you rocked out on the Marxophone?). On their second album, Fleet Foxes continue to take their music in unusual directions, creating a baroque folk-pop sound that hints at a number of influences - Simon & Garfunkel, Fairport Convention, the Beach Boys - but is too unique, too esoteric, too damn weird to warrant any direct links between the Seattle boys and their predecessors.
Props to Helplessness Blues for making the fretless zither cool again.
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