Spent the last hour or so getting caught up in Horse Feathers' gorgeous new album. I'm going to be writing a review of it for Willamette Week tonight but my initial thoughts have helped solidify something that has for some bizarre reason been troubling me for a while now - why I can't seem to get into Fleet Foxes.

On a face value glance, both bands are fairly similar in their approaches to this neo-folk genre that has the Northwest under its sway lately, but Horse Feathers seems to capture something that FF just can't. Listening to the HF album, I think I've narrowed it down to two key things:

1) Justin Ringle's voice - all buttery midrange with clipped ends and an oddly rounded pronunciation - cuts right to the heart of me every time I hear it. FF's vocal harmonies are laudable, but they hold no weight, pixelating into the air like a simulated fireworks blast.

2) Peter Broderick - the band's secret weapon. His instrumental accountrements are essential to every song in the HF oeuvre, adding the whiskey sting to Ringle's water smooth singing and guitar work. The music on both FF releases I've heard feels like an afterthought, a begrudging necessity to keep the group from coming off like some hipster barbershop quartet.

I had much more written about this but managed to lose it in some odd keystroke accident, but I think my point is still being made here. I would like to hear from someone out there who is willing to sell Fleet Foxes to me and let me know what I am missing.