When your day band is one of the most critically lauded acts in recent memory, and that band’s ex-drummer has released one of the best records of 2012, it might not be so easy to be Christian Wargo right now. Bassist and vocalist for Fleet Foxes, Wargo has seen ex-bandmate Josh Tillman become the brilliant Father John Misty, and he could be forgiven for thinking that anything he releases as part of Poor Moon will be seen as a minor distraction from his work with his main outfit: why listen to this when you could be listening to the “real thing” from Robin Pecknold and co? But all that is doing a great disservice to Wargo, who has earned his chops playing as part of Danielson Famile and Pedro the Lion, and is also currently part of Crystal Skulls alongside fellow Fleet Fox and Poor Moon member Casey Wescott. Joining those two for full-length debut Poor Moon are brothers Ian and Peter Murray and yes, at times it does sound like Fleet Foxes. But when Wargo’s vocals are a vital part of the appeal of that band, comparisons are unavoidable…. what’s he supposed to do, change the way he sings? Get a voice transplant? Perhaps we should accept that Wargo simply shares the same musical interests as Pecknold and his band’s sound reflects this bald fact.

Poor Moon follows the Illusion EP from earlier in the year (none of those songs appear on the album) and is a step up from that tentative release. Wargo takes the sound he’s honed in Fleet Foxes and to that folky, bucolic music he’s added some jangle that recalls Big Star circa Third/Sister Lovers and also a touch of The Hollies (hardly a surprise given the debt FF owe to Graham Nash’s contribution to folk-rock over the past 40 years), defining Poor Moon as a band wholly separate from the Foxes. The record is generally more playful in tone too, right from the sound of crickets and whistling through the finger-picked opener ‘Clouds Below’, the harpsichord that turns ‘Phantom Light’ from ghostly reverb-laden sadness into baroque lightness, and the airy piano and bells that dominate ‘Same Way’. There are FF echoes to those latter tracks, but as some of the songs Wargo had collected over the past decade were intended for that band comparisons are, again, unavoidable and frankly irrelevant.

Yet it’s the more individual songs that shine the brightest. The Tropicalia of ‘Holiday’ is excellent fun, with Wargo singing “And just about the time when everyone here noticed you were gone/You were making footprints in the sand at dawn/Faraway, on a holiday” while the narrator is left procrastinating over her favourite songs. ‘Waiting For’ is perhaps the highlight of the record, with lush harmonies sung over booming percussion, reminiscent of Papercuts’ take on ’60s pop and psychedelia, and equally as pleading-for-love as the songs on Fading Parade. Then there’s the electric storm of ‘Heaven’s Door’ which has a creepy organ line that gives a nod to the British Invasion, in particular The Zombies, and seems to be a song about addiction as Wargo sings “Got a friend of the devil living in my soul/And the taste of flames in the back of my throat”; and the Brit theme continues with the jaunty ‘Pulling Me Down’ which couldn’t be more like The Hollies if it tried, and is excellent as a result.

A trio of downbeat tracks – ‘Bucky Pony’, ‘Come Home’ and ‘Birds’ – finds us back in simple folk territory: plucked guitar strings, trembling percussion and gorgeous harmonies. Everything is pitch perfect; Wargo is on record as saying that the whole construction of a song matters to him, from the chords, lyrics and melody down to getting the arrangement just right. Poor Moon stands as a document to that vision, and for the most part it’s a success. I can gripe about the songs being a little too short and the record losing some focus in those final few tracks, and that’s something that maybe comes from Wargo and co having their fingers in one too many pies. The majority of the tracks were written during a dark period of Wargo’s life – hence the references to addiction, death and lost love – but as I’ve said there’s a playfulness that means it’s not hard to listen to Poor Moon. Indeed, at times it’s a complete joy and that overrides any concerns anyone should have in thinking Poor Moon the band are nothing more than a faded facsimile of a cherished original. Let’s judge them on their own, rather fine, merits.

Listen to Poor Moon