There has not been a more lovely piece of music released this year than Fleet Foxes’ White Winter Hymnal. That is a scientifically proven fact and we can disregard sneerers like Mrs Mac who claim that it reminds them of Frere Jacques. As you can see from the album cover and the video the Foxes don’t have that much in common with a lot of other bands which have come out of Seattle. Nirvana never evoked images of peasants frolicking in the meadow for me but then they never came up with lines like:

Meadowlark, fly your way down,
I hold a cornucopia and a golden crown
for you to wear upon your fleece’d gown.
Ah meadowlark, sing to me.

Not being a literary sort I thought that people had stopped addressing songs to nearby meadowlarks about the time that Wordsworth died. Perhaps the ecological crisis is working its way through modern culture by giving us the return of longings for lost pastoral idylls. Part of their onstage banter at Monday night’s show in the Shepherd’s Bush Empire explored the ethics of creating jobs in China that pay eight cents for making ipods. The drummer is the radical one in the band and came out strongly in favour of redistribution of wealth. They all seemed very relieved at the result of last week’s election and are looking forward to cars powered by hugs and “being more like Canada”.

Maybe the boys are just sensitive. They are certainly well versed in traditional American music and the barber shop / Beach Boys harmonies are one of the joys of their album. Live they didn’t quite capture the ethereal quality of their recordings and at more than one point resembled a rough cut from Pet Sounds. The audience was in a mood to be charmed and it helps to have the crowd on your side. In the live set the band’s influences shine through even more strongly than on the album. They draw heavily from the American and English folk tradition but there also seemed to be a bit of prog rock in there too. In the unlikely event that any musician is interested in my advice I’d caution this band to beware of the danger of wandering into noodly Genesis territory and concentrate more on the strongly melodic pop songs that they do so well. Just as strong as some of the group performances were the couple of solo numbers by lead singer Robin Peknold. Astonishingly for a venue as large as the Empire he did one without microphone or amplification. It speaks to the power of his performance that the whole theatre was silent while a virtually unknown man sang a song based on a Scottish poem.

Tonight’s set occasionally lacked polish but it was an uplifting and cheering way to spend an evening in the company of a band who, if there is any justice in the world, are likely to be omnipresent in the next few years. They earned the cups of herbal tea which must have been waiting for them backstage.