Send "The Decemberists " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Nobody got into the Decemberists for the riffs. In other ways, though, the theatrical Portland folk-rockers' noble sojourn into heavy narrative prog-folk was probably always in the stars. Ornately antiquarian diction was their Ziggy Stardust. Ginormous song suites based on world folklore were their deaf, dumb, and blind kid. Yes, they were meant for The Wall.In an interview with Paste, singing guitarist/songwriter Colin Meloy mentioned that The Hazards of Love was "initially conceived as a musical... but I decided about halfway through my time in France that it wasn't going to work as a stage piece. But it would still work as a rock record, so that's where it ended up." Alas, for all the derring-do of the Decemberists' resolutely un-sold-out (I guess?) fifth album, its failures as a stage piece may explain some of the problems that hamper it as a rock record. It makes sense that the Decemberists would end up here. A willingness to make their fans put in some work, whether with fancy language or sprawling song suites, has been part of their steez ever since the baroque reveries of 2002 debut Castaways and Cutouts and stagey bookishness of 2003 breakthrough Her Majesty-- both of which still kick pantaloon. After 2004's The Tain EP flashed the first signs of metalhead envy, Picaresque a year later ended the Decemberists' indie years with their most relatable and poppiest album (still my favorite of theirs). Capitol debut The Crane Wife showed no symptoms of what Meloy had termed "major-label sellout-itis"....full text |
| Guardian |
| The relationship between American alt-rock and the British folk revival of the 60s is a surprising one. You might think an impassable cultural and aesthetic gulf lay between the two genres, but there's evidence of an intermittent transatlantic love affair. The blanched, taut solos of Television were indebted to Richard Thompson's attempts to develop a blues-free language for the electric guitar. REM worked with British folk-rock's premier producer Joe Boyd in the 80s. More recently, erstwhile Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus coaxed Vashti Bunyan back on stage for the first time in 30 years. The Decemberists The Hazards of Love Capitol 2009 Buy Hazards of Love at the Guardian shop But no recent US alt-rock band has delved quite so deeply into the world of British folk as the Decemberists, ostensibly an acclaimed indie rock quartet big on wry, bookish narrative songs. Frontman Colin Meloy has already recorded EPs of traditional songs arranged by revered Sussex singer Shirley Collins. This, the band's fifth album, began life as an attempt to write a title song for The Hazards of Love, Anne Briggs' fabled 1964 EP of unaccompanied singing, but seems to have grown out of control. It's now a 17-track concept album that attempts to tell a story about - sharp intake of breath - a fair maiden called Margaret who is ravished by a shape-shifting demon. Other stuff happens to her afterwards, involving a homicidal rake and a forest queen, but, as is customary with concept albums, it's pretty much impossible to work out what. Like Amy Winehouse at one of her more dissolute live appearances, you've totally lost the plot by the third song and never really find it again. Every song segues into the next, often via a piece of interstitial music called something like An Interlude or The Queen's Approach. Musical motifs and characters alike keep recurring. The title track is broken into four parts. Song titles arrive decorated (liberally) with (possibly) superfluous brackets/forward slashes. There are even - Gadzooks! 'Swounds! - knowing lyrical experiments with archaic language. The latter prove a little hard to bear. You listen to A Bower Scene - "thou unconsolable daughter," sings Meloy, "when wilt thou trouble the water?" - and think: i'faith, sirrah, wilt thou not give it a rest? There is a certain kind of music fan who will read the above with a solemn expression: what we have on our hands here, gentlemen, is a potentially fatal outbreak of Jethro Tull, and we can only pray, for humanity's sake, that the emergency services act swiftly to contain it. But there are things here that could convince the most prog-phobic listener. Meloy has long been acclaimed as an original and brilliant writer, and there's ample evidence of both his idiosyncratic lyrical eye (at one point it rests on a newborn baby's "crinkled little fingers") and ability to come up with melodies that sound as though they might have existed for centuries. The Hazards of Love 2, Annan Water and Isn't It a Lovely Night? are utterly glorious, while The Rakes' Song is that rarest of things, a comical rock track about infanticide....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| Mentioning the phrase "concept album" in 2009 would normally be met with a vacant stare; certainly for a generation raised on MTV and iTunes, where flipping channels and skipping tracks is all part of the daily routine, the idea of having to digest a whopping seventeen pieces of music clocking it an hour all in one sitting for any of this record to make sense would no doubt cause mass bewilderment followed by a hefty retreat to the safe and easy confines of MySpace or You Tube. As far as The Decemberists are concerned however, the advent of the 45 is long dead and buried. If 2006's fourth long player 'The Crane Wife' revealed a band whose modus operandum had to be taken seriously, then their latest epic journey 'The Hazards Of Love' is clearly the sound of a band exercising their craft on another level entirely....full text |
The Decemberists lyrics
