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10.0
96703
10.0 |
Sputnik Music (staff)
Fleet Foxes get even more ambitious, and in the process establish themselves as possibly the greatest indie-folk act of the decade
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10.0
96735
10.0 |
Pretty Much Amazing
This will be their high water mark
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9.0
96791
9.0 |
Drowned In Sound
There is a renewed adrenaline running through Crack-Up's veins, helped massively by longtime producer Phil Ek's ability to flesh their complex sound out, but also through Pecknold allowing himself to step back and re-evaluate the band's existence so far
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9.0
96846
9.0 |
Exclaim
Fleet Foxes maintain their status as one of the best folk rock bands of the 21st century
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9.0
96913
9.0 |
The 405
More charming than ever before, Fleet Foxes' return with Crack-Up is a major step for the band, contriving a brand new era of divine melodies and break through compositions
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9.0
96928
9.0 |
PopMatters
On their first album in six years, Fleet Foxes produce a dense, complex album that's easily their best, most ambitious work yet
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9.0
96994
9.0 |
Earbuddy
Big, bold, beautiful. The third album from Fleet Foxes is everything it's cracked up to be
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8.7
96838
8.7 |
Pitchfork
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
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8.6
96740
8.6 |
Gig Soup
A deeply rewarding album that explores an expansive vocabulary of human emotion
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8.5
96799
8.5 |
Under The Radar
Its beauty and craft are on display throughout, providing a glimpse of music that is a joy to hear
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8.5
97240
8.5 |
The Quietus
The Fleet Foxes' established folk sound meets jazz basslines and vocals that let a clearer but darker sense of self emerge
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8.3
96705
8.3 |
Consequence Of Sound
The highly anticipated album, years in the making, that he’s delivered focuses on the long road of strife preceding that. Challenging throughout and at times jarring and inscrutable, Crack-Up searches for a resolution just out of reach
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8.2
97394
8.2 |
AU Review
Fleet Foxes didn’t fall into the rut of music-making and chose to take a risk. Fortunately, the risk paid off, and Fleet Foxes created an album that might just satisfy their fans for another six years
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8.1
96968
8.1 |
Paste Magazine
These are skilled singers and players, up and down Fleet Foxes’ lineup. It’s Pecknold, however, who is blessed with not only an incredible songwriting gift, but also the unwillingness to sit still for very long
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8.0
96973
8.0 |
The Observer
Immersive, shifting creations
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8.0
96946
8.0 |
DIY
The Fleet Foxes we already know but on a much, much bigger scale
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8.0
96905
8.0 |
All Music
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
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8.0
96926
8.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
Apply a bit of patience and this challenging, expectation-defying, flawed but ultimately rewarding record is likely to prove worth the effort
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8.0
96706
8.0 |
Uncut
Distinctive, involving, challenging, accessible, progressive and most other things that continue to be desirable in an indie-rock record
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8.0
96713
8.0 |
Q
The 12 tracks here are less songs than sequences of ornate music that sometimes flip around on a whim. Print edition only
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8.0
96765
8.0 |
NME
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
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8.0
96868
8.0 |
The Independent
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
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8.0
97163
8.0 |
The FT
Sonically, the interplay of harmonies, acoustic guitar and piano is entrancingly beautiful
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7.0
96841
7.0 |
Slant Magazine
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
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7.0
96760
7.0 |
The Music
A quintessential Fleet Foxes album through and through
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7.0
96704
7.0 |
Loud And Quiet
With this record their intention to move away from making another collection of conventional songs is clear
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7.0
96914
7.0 |
Spectrum Culture
Sometimes suffers at the hands of its many fraught layers
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7.0
96921
7.0 |
Rolling Stone
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
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7.0
97066
7.0 |
Clash
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
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7.0
97427
7.0 |
Prefix
Fleet Foxes' first album in six years is ambitious and grand, but it's best moments are its most intimate songs
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6.0
112609
6.0 |
Crack
Singles Hydrocodone and Feelings are the gold standard for this intoxicating blend; the former showcasing gutting lyrical sensibilities, the latter a consummate understanding of mixing, where each layer of instrumentation is richly felt, the contours rigid even as they melt together
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6.0
97108
6.0 |
musicOMH
Melodies as miraculous as White Winter Hymnal, Mykonos or Battery Kinzie are in short supply here, but moments of the old magic remain
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6.0
96953
6.0 |
Evening Standard
True believers will proclaim the band’s genius
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6.0
96707
6.0 |
Mojo
Inspires hope that transcendence is waiting around the corner. Print edition only
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6.0
96885
6.0 |
The Irish Times
An album that’s undoubtedly more interesting than their previous fare, but also perhaps less enjoyable
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6.0
96894
6.0 |
The Guardian
Luscious harmonies and lyrical heaviness
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5.8
96942
5.8 |
A.V. Club
Crack-Up sounds like an artist trying to figure out where he stands and why he’s standing there
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