“Montezuma” by Fleet Foxes

"Montezuma" belongs to Helplessness Blues, the second Fleet Foxes album, released in 2011 on Sub Pop and Bella Union. Robin Pecknold wrote it alone, words and music, and Phil Ek co-produced, engineered and mixed it.

The record caught the band mid-shuffle: it was the first with bassist Christian Wargo and multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson, and the only one with Josh Tillman on drums and backing vocals before he left in 2012 and reinvented himself as Father John Misty. Critics fell for it across the board, it climbed to number 4 on the Billboard 200, the highest the band had reached, and it picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.