"You can't reinvent how to write a song," Robin Pecknold once said in an interview. "I don't listen to too much new music unless it adheres to tradition." Generally we might take that to mean Neil Young or Fleetwood Mac, but the polyphonic choral intros and sense of space to newer Fleet Foxes songs pull from early American hymns, maybe even monastic chants. The complicated multi-part harmonies have prompted Pecknold to start air conducting -- which we hope he decides to leave in rehearsal. On the other hand, the band's vocal unisons and musical precision stuns club-goers out of their usual beer-fueled, catch-up chatter. Last Friday night they opened for the Cave Singers in a sold-out show at the Crocodile Cafe; we cut out early after their set feeling completely satisfied. We caught up with Robin outside and pestered him for news on their first album (finished, label-shopping in progress, maybe out by April or May '08, plans for a self-produced EP this January). Our friend said he saw about five other Fleet-Foxes-only fans on his bus, heading home. ("FANTASTIC show last night! i almost died," wrote one on their MySpace page.)

As an example of what we're talking about, and in memory of the weekend snow, here's "White Winter Hymnal" (thanks to mandyowen.net for the lyrics). It's a short song, but in the Fleet Foxes' hands, it becomes a round that spins you around (listen here):

I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied ’round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go!
And, Michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries
in the summertime