Fleet Foxes’ comparatively glossy production and gentle harmonizing almost seem cartoonish when paired with the world-weary solo albums of the Seattle band’s drummer,J. Tillman. On Tillman’s fourth full-length, his husky, hushed voice echoes in the folksy expanses shared by Nick Drake, Will Oldham, and Seven Swans–era Sufjan Stevens, intoning aphorisms and snippets of vague, existential advice to some unnamed “you.” But the dusty, reverent feel of even the album’s wildest rockers gives the sense that he’s just a lone wanderer battling solitude with sound.
Listen: J. Tillman, “Steel On Steel” J. Tillman, “James Blues”
