Hotly tipped Seattle band Fleet Foxes have signed with hometown label Sub Pop, Billboard.com can reveal. The group’s Sub Pop debut, produced by Phil Ek, will be out this summer.
Beforehand, Fleet Foxes will be selling a five-song tour EP, “Sun Giant,” also produced by Ek. The EP, due in late February, will also be available via SubPop.com. An earlier self-titled EP has been a strong seller in Seattle since the fall of 2006.
Fleet Foxes are about to begin their first national tour with labelmates Blitzen Trapper. The trek begins Feb. 28 at the Noise Pop festival in San Francisco and will wrap in mid-April. A number of gigs are in the works during the South by Southwest festival in mid-March in Austin, Texas.
The smoky ’60s sound of Love and the amiable jangle of the Shins are clear touchstones of Fleet Foxes’ sound, but the group really strikes gold on cleverly constructed EP tracks like “Anyone Who’s Anyone,” “She Got Dressed” and “In the Hot Hot Rays,” where the vocal and guitar melodies keep one-upping each other in a battle to see which can be catchier.
A batch of newer material can be found for streaming on Fleet Foxes’ MySpace.com site.
