MOST people at some point wish to be unique, “like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes” as Robin Pecknold sings on the title track of Seattle-based Fleet Foxes’ second album. But then reality bites – one is actually “a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me”.

For Pecknold, however, this isn’t a realisation embittered with deep disappointment (like a free-spirited adventurer now locked into a nine-to-five desk job). In fact it’s what he’d “rather be” according to those very lyrics.

At the age of 25, maybe he shouldn’t quite yet be turning into an surly old realist, especially when he’s being hailed for the beauty of his song-writing, heading a band at the forefront of an apparent resurgence in traditional, folk-led, lovely choral music.

But then there are a few surprises throughout the LP, with mysterious lyrics – the kind that only find full meaning after several nights without sleep – scattered around a host of exquisite harmonies, punctured by the occasional use of a strange instrument (Tibetan singing bowls, anyone?) It’s like Simon and Garfunkel for a 21st century world-wide-web-travelled generation who can seek the meaning of lyrics and life over internet chatrooms.

Actually, it’s more like Simon, Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, given there are six of them, creating their Fleet Foxes sound via a mesh of guitars and voices.

But there’s the crux – it’s all delightful but it’s only ground-breaking for youngsters who haven’t heard this sound before. So maybe Pecknold et al are just a cog after all, in a musical industry wheel