🎵 How Good Are They Really 🎵 The Decemberists

drspaceman · 2021-07-05T22:06:40.236Z

Interesting thread for a periodically interesting band. I can only echo what most have already said, in that I got into them around Picaresque, absolutely love about 10 of their songs, and haven’t listened to them much post-Crane Wife.

I revisited both those albums today and they still stand up, and the thread also reminded me of this late-career showstopper, so cheers for that:

And the anchorperson on TV / goes la di da di da

Flittermouse · 2021-07-05T22:08:15.387Z

Tremendous song and so evil. I think the Meloy household has a of The Gashlycrumb Tinies somewhere. Expect you think that I should be haunted, but it never really bothers me, brrrrrrrr

thesewoodenideas · 2021-07-05T22:09:15.588Z

Think the post Hazards albums are all a bit of a mish mash. Some excellent songs and a few clunkers. They’ve got a few different styles and directions in their repertoire now but as a result the albums seem to lack a flow or identity. Still good mind.
Yeah it’s very Hazards-y, frankly a big fan of when they go all in on epic almost prog.
Damn fine band.

thesewoodenideas · 2021-07-05T22:13:54.566Z

Really enjoyed the streaming shows Meloy did during the early lockdown days.
On one of them he ended being egged on by fans and played about half of the Hazards of Love album in full before being like “yeah there’s no way I can play the next few tracks on my own here folks”.
Seems like a good lad.
Read his first book and it was good. I see Laika pictures have the rights to a movie of it, would love to see that providing Decemberists do the soundtrack obvs.

hardworking · 2021-07-05T22:24:23.549Z

Hmmm, interesting one. Really really loved Picaresque, the CD of which I ripped from my ex’s collection. Also really liked The King Is Dead when it it came out, much more ‘lightweight’ but then that’s also it’s strength. Listened to Crane Wife and Hazards a bit, but never enough for them to properly stick in the mind. Saw them live circa 2011 and it was great, not heard any of the albums since then. From what people have said here it sounds like I’d not enjoy them much.

It’s true that they give their critics a lot of ammunition. Their main characteristics can be a bit… stodgy I guess? Something you have to be in the mood for, and if you aren’t they might annoy you. For me the stuff I know and like already is probably enough Decemberists for me, I don’t feel the need to explore more

That said, Picaresque is fantastic, and the Engine Driver / Bus Mall combo is sublime: all that wordiness flows like water. Something really special captured there. And then the Revenge Song after is really good dramatic fun.

I’m not going to judge them on what I’ve not heard, and the highs are very high, so I think it’s a 4 from me.

whatwhat · 2021-07-06T00:27:13.440Z

they got progressively proggier and proggier right up to the “the hazards of love” which was a wild listen and then…they regressed to middling mediocrity

their highs are super high and since their prog-folk-metal phase they’ve been pretty boring

guntrip · 2021-07-06T05:39:06.645Z

This is great from their recent stuff

hip_young_gunslinger · 2021-07-06T08:53:10.672Z

colon_closed_bracket:

spending all your money on the Horse And Hounds

This made me lol

Lo-Pan · 2021-07-06T09:21:05.020Z

meh

Tiergarten · 2021-07-06T10:23:54.091Z

4/5, especially for the run of Castways…/Picaresque/The Crane Wife. Literate, but never too arch (for my own tastes, may vary for others), and often transcendentally beautiful. As mentioned a fair bit here, The Engine Driver / On The Bus Mall one is an incredible one-two.

Saw them in 2007 at Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. Land of Talk opened and were incredible. Colin Meloy had food poisoning and had to leave the stage for long periods of time.

Flittermouse · 2021-07-06T15:06:09.770Z

I’ve really come round to What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World today, it could do with losing two or three tracks maybe but it’s a good album, much better than I remembered. Either it’s not as boring as I thought it was or my taste has got duller in the last 5 years (probably both).

Offa Rex hasn’t been mentioned yet I don’t think, The Decemberists plus Olivia Chaney singing folk songs, Black Leg Miner sounds like it could have been on Her Majesty The Decemberists

Yvash · 2021-07-06T15:16:40.340Z

I fell hard in love with Her Majesty around the time it came out - 2003, 2004 - and it got some pretty heavy rotation at the time but it was the era of Pitchfork-approved-American-Indie and there was a lot going on and some rose high and above the water (Arcade Fire) and somehow, they just sort of slipped from my memory a couple of years later.

I think I gave Picaresque a quick listen at the time but I guess by that point I was into something else entirely and so I pretty much forgot them until last year when I happened upon a copy of The Crane Wife in a charity shop, and I picked it up (alongside Tunng’s Comments Of The Inner Chorus and Secret Machines’ Ten Silver Drops - someone was clearing out their mid-2000s indie/folk-adjacent collection, evidently). I listened to all three and I think Ten Silver Drops was the more immediate but I’ve put on The Crane Wife this afternoon and it is splendid. I love the proggyness. It absolutely makes it for me, it’s a brilliant enhancement of what would be a nice collection of simple folk songs that with a sympathetic prog arrangement burst to life, building upon themselves into joyous crescendos that feel like you’re being pulled right into the music.

I can’t say I have the emotional connection that some here have but I do kind of feel like I’ve found an old friend and we have a lot to catch up.

I was going to go with a 3, but I think a 4 is appropriate - The Crane Wife is very special, and The Gymnast, High Above the Ground from Her Majesty is a wonderful bit of storytelling I’m now reconnecting with.

IvorDewdney · 2021-07-06T17:59:27.216Z

SCORE!

IvorDewdney · 2021-07-06T18:30:02.937Z

It’s 3.31 for The Decemberists!

IvorDewdney · 2021-07-06T18:30:31.656Z

Hole
Squarepusher
Iggy Pop
The Decemberists

0 voters

allisfulloflove · 2021-07-06T18:35:43.943Z

What a tune this is. I almost forgot about it.

get_it_horse · 2021-07-06T19:03:38.282Z

Gonna give The Crane Wife a spin now, but in the meantime, I’ve enjoyed revisting this one – think it’s a great example not just of having a way with words, but knowing which words work especially well for his voice & delivery. Absolutely love this bit:

'Til I’m dust I’ll never know why he came ashore
with all those killers gathered on the shoreline
kicking holes in ugly mud with trigger fingers pinched
a brace of rifles, bristled in the wind.
And we towed his body northbound
and buried him all face down
with a good view into hell.

colon_closed_bracket · 2021-07-06T19:41:03.042Z

Was expecting a lot worse tbh!

IvorDewdney · 2021-07-06T19:43:15.577Z

It’s been a nice thread all in all

Icarus-Smicarus · 2021-07-15T15:22:50.539Z

listening to The Hazards of Love, it’s very good isn’t it?

gets very LOUD at times (this is a good thing)