Robin Pecknold says the newest Fleet Foxes record, Shore, is the band’s “fun” one—which, for a group known for pastoral existentialism and dense orchestration, is basically like calling a Terrence Malick film a rom-com. But he’s not wrong. Shore is lighter on its feet than Crack-Up, shorter songs, smoother transitions, and dare we say, vibes.
“It was the end of the line for a certain kind of song,” Pecknold tells me, referring to the multi-part epics that dominated the last two albums. Instead of repeating himself, he mapped out this new one using tempo charts, built transitions that feel more like natural gradients than hard cuts, and wrote 40 songs to get to the final batch. “I kept the ones that felt undeniable,” he says.
Some of those came to him while driving through upstate New York during the early months of the pandemic. “It became a road record without really meaning to be,” he says. “There was a kind of escapism in the car, but with constant reminders of reality—quarantine signs, gas stations with masks—it mirrored the album.”
Lyrically, Shore is a more outward-facing album, but still wrestles with time, memory, and legacy—topics that have haunted Fleet Foxes since day one. Pecknold opens the album with someone else’s voice (Uwade Akhere) before entering on “Sunblind,” name-checking Richard Swift, David Berman, Elliott Smith, and more in a sort of spiritual eulogy. “There’s a shared sense of collective loss, but also a power in carrying these people forward,” he says.
Songs like “A Long Way Past the Past” challenge nostalgia itself. “We're in a moment where people are afraid of the future, and that fear gets romanticized into something toxic,” he says. “I wanted to acknowledge that—balance what you carry with what you leave behind.”
And then there’s the time manipulation trick: Shore was almost a 24-song, 24-hour concept album—no beginning, no end, just an ambient orbit you could drop into depending on the hour. “We’re still working on a version of that,” he says, hinting it may eventually be released as a bonus companion project.
As for who’s in the band? Chris Bear (Grizzly Bear) contributed drums. The Westerlies are back on horns. And Pecknold’s planning to open up future projects to his longtime bandmates for more writing collaboration since there’s no tour looming. “It doesn’t have to be the same thing every time,” he says. “It never really has been.”
In the end, Shore is exactly what it needed to be: an album that offers warmth without denial, beauty without nostalgia, and clarity without simplicity. And yes, it’s kinda fun.
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
