Helplessness Blues is the second studio album by the American band Fleet Foxes, released on May 3, 2011. In 2009, Fleet Foxes rented a house in Port Townsend so that Robin Pecknold could write new songs. Spending most of his time on tour with the band to promote their first self-titled album Fleet Foxes, he could not begin working until the end of the year. Interviewed in December 2009, Pecknold stated that the songs intended for the second album were half written. He described his new tracks as being "less poppy". Pecknold then planned to release a follow-up to the first album during the second half of 2010. He said he wanted to record quickly, even if a few technical errors remained, in order to give the record a sonic coherence comparable to that of Astral Weeks by Van Morrison. Helplessness Blues was well received by critics. The site Metacritic gave it an average score of 85 out of 100 (category universal acclaim). The French weekly L'Express described the music as "magical, mystical, even psychedelic", while Le Monde evoked an "euphoric spleen" close to "the Beach Boys, Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel or Crosby, Stills & Nash".
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