Spring Break
Decemberists still have magic touch
Tim Hollan
Issue date: 4/17/09 Section: Entertainment
Artist: The Decemberists
Album: Hazards of Love
Indie Rock
Grade: A-
One should approach the Decemberists new album with trepidation. When they said they were going to do a bookish rock opera, that meant that they were staying away from their strengths while playing up their weaknesses. Simply put, the Decemberists doing a rock opera could easily be an album full of "The Tain" rather than "On the Bus Mall," pretentious exercises in telling epic pastoral stories with lyrics straight from a bad musical rather than engaging character sketches.
Like any concept album, or at least the good ones, the story is unimportant. Seriously. Who pays attention to or even knows the story of Tommy or American Idiot? We remember the songs, but we don't care about what happens. The story is some abstract tale about Margaret who apparently angers some queen or something. It's incredibly difficult to follow and really is better of ignoring in favor of the songs.
Like their past album, The Crane Wife, the center piece of the album is a multipart track called "The Hazards of Love." The four songs show off a heavy folk rock influence, throwing medieval rhythms into the mix, while throwing in heavy metal riffs here and there, serving as a guide to the sounds and themes that the band employs on this album. These songs are possibly the best on the record since these tend not to advance the plot, but rather reinforce points.
Paradoxically, like most rock operas, the best songs are the ones that provide either a detailed sketch of a character or a single scene. For instance, the "Rake's Song" provides an incredibly interesting character sketch of a man who gets into a marriage and is overcome with children, whom he murders because he can't take care of them because his wife died in childbirth. It's darkly humorous, and clever without being forced or overly pretentious. Unfortunately, the songs more focused on the story, the lyrics are clumsy, inorganic, and stilted.
Album: Hazards of Love
Indie Rock
Grade: A-
One should approach the Decemberists new album with trepidation. When they said they were going to do a bookish rock opera, that meant that they were staying away from their strengths while playing up their weaknesses. Simply put, the Decemberists doing a rock opera could easily be an album full of "The Tain" rather than "On the Bus Mall," pretentious exercises in telling epic pastoral stories with lyrics straight from a bad musical rather than engaging character sketches.
Like any concept album, or at least the good ones, the story is unimportant. Seriously. Who pays attention to or even knows the story of Tommy or American Idiot? We remember the songs, but we don't care about what happens. The story is some abstract tale about Margaret who apparently angers some queen or something. It's incredibly difficult to follow and really is better of ignoring in favor of the songs.
Like their past album, The Crane Wife, the center piece of the album is a multipart track called "The Hazards of Love." The four songs show off a heavy folk rock influence, throwing medieval rhythms into the mix, while throwing in heavy metal riffs here and there, serving as a guide to the sounds and themes that the band employs on this album. These songs are possibly the best on the record since these tend not to advance the plot, but rather reinforce points.
Paradoxically, like most rock operas, the best songs are the ones that provide either a detailed sketch of a character or a single scene. For instance, the "Rake's Song" provides an incredibly interesting character sketch of a man who gets into a marriage and is overcome with children, whom he murders because he can't take care of them because his wife died in childbirth. It's darkly humorous, and clever without being forced or overly pretentious. Unfortunately, the songs more focused on the story, the lyrics are clumsy, inorganic, and stilted.
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