Fleet Foxes, "White Winter Hymnal"

The granddaddy of alt-weeklies, New York's Village Voice, is currently conducting its annual Pazz & Jop survey of music critics' favorite albums and singles of the past year. I have participated the past five years - but I'm not submitting a ballot this year. It would be an unfair vote; I simply didn't listen to enough new music to have informed opinions on what the cream of the crop truly was, nor could I even come up with 10 albums I could recommend without reservations.

But if I were casting a ballot this year, I'd include a band I've only now heard in the new year, courtesy of a new friend. Fleet Foxes are a Seattle band whose music has the barren-cathedral hollowness of My Morning Jacket and the close vocal harmonies of early Crosby, Stills & Nash. There's an astonishing beauty to "White Winter Hymnal" that makes it easy to ignore the unsettling lyrics ("red as strawberries in summertime" is far too pretty to describe a head falling to the ground and turning the snow red with blood).

The rest of the Fleet Foxes album is quite good too, and is getting plenty of critical love from the tastemakers of the blogosphere. I don't think they'll miss my P&J vote.