This 2020 Top 31 is officially the twelfth time I’ve written about my favorite albums of the year. The history I’ve documented in that span is one of my favorite things about the overall endeavor. Getting to reread what I thought about a record ten years later is personally exciting.

For instance, I just went back and reread the reviews of the two previous Fleet Foxes albums that have appeared on the Top 31 (Crack-Up at #12 in 2017 and Helplessness Blues at #9 in 2011). My memory of the band is that I’ve always held them in high regard and unquestionably loved everything they’ve put out. But upon rereading those older reviews, I’m reminded of my own Fleet Foxes burnout just before Helplessness Blues came out. To me, now, that sounds like somebody else entirely. How could I have ever disliked the Fleet Foxes. And yet there it is, in black and white.

One thing I can say for certain: if I’d been writing about my Top 31 in 2008, the self-titled Fleet Foxes debut from that year would have been #1. Since then the band has been through ups and downs, breakups and reunions, mostly at the whim of the band’s principal songwriter and lead singer Robin Pecknold. After a long sabbatical while he went to Columbia University, the band’s release of Crack-Up in 2017 felt a little less “triumphant” than I would have hoped for. I loved the somewhat disjointed and melancholy album, but it didn’t exceed expectations. So when the band released Shore at the exact moment of the Autumnal Equinox (September 22, 2020, at 13:31 UTC), I was excited and genuinely curious where Pecknold was taking the band.

And I was so happy to hear that where he was taking them was exactly where I hoped they’d be. Shore, the band’s fourth album in their 14 year history, is a beautiful, orchestral masterpiece. Pecknold recorded the foundation of the album in a number of studios starting in 2018, working with many new collaborators while fully expecting to bring in his bandmates to round out the songs into a complete Fleet Foxes album. But then the pandemic changed everything, making it impossible for the band to gather throughout 2020, leaving Pecknold essentially alone to write lyrics and finish the album.

All of these factors make the album’s creation and subsequent sound all the more astonishing. The multi-layered harmonies, the strings and horns, and Pecknold’s ethereal and personal lyrics that the Fleet Foxes are known for are all there. As such, Shore couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a Fleet Foxes album. But that’s also where the album shines – it doesn’t sound like a throwback to another era, as their previous albums have. This isn’t 60’s hippie music. Pecknold brings a new level of experience, growth, and maturity to the album, demonstrating the potential greatest I saw in him back in 2007 wasn’t just a fluke. He just needed time to get there.

Accompanying the release of the album is a film of the same name shot and directed by Kersti Jan Werdal. It features the entire album playing over a beautiful set of Pacific Northwest landscapes. On top of that, the video above for “Sunblind” is great, and the only opportunity you’ll have to catch a video with 2020-era Pecknold in it. A video for “Can I Believe You” was also released, with dancers squaring off to the music in mesmerizing ways.

Shore was a calming presence for me as 2020 wound down. If I needed to relax and disconnect from the madness in the real world, I’d throw this on and quickly escape to a cold and misty Washington-state beach. We were lucky to have the Fleet Foxes in our world in 2020, given the way the album came together. Maybe in 2021 we’ll get to see them live once again. Fingers crossed.

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1. Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
2. Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple
3. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
4. folklore + evermore by Taylor Swift
5. Untitled (Black Is) + Untitled (Rise) by Sault
6. RTJ4 by Run The Jewels
7. Shore by Fleet Foxes
8. Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger
9. The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens
10. Making a Door Less Open by Car Seat Headrest
11. Dreamland by Glass Animals
12. A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.
13. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez by Gorillaz
14. Mordechai + Texas Sun EP by Khruangbin
15. Introduction, Presence by Nation of Language
16. Free Love by Sylvan Esso
17. Miss Anthropocene by Grimes
18. 3.15.20 by Childish Gambino
19. Women In Music Pt. III by HAIM
20. The Third Mind by The Third Mind
21. Superstar by Caroline Rose
22. Impossible Weight by Deep Sea Diver
23. We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches
24. Ultra Mono by IDLES
25. Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.
26. Thin Mind by Wolf Parade
27. The Loves of Your Life by Hamilton Leithauser
28. Palo Alto (Live) by Thelonious Monk
29. color theory by Soccer Mommy
30. Fall to Pieces by Tricky
31. Quarantine Casanova by Chromeo

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