You know how there is this one artist or album that everyone would love if they just gave it a listen? This column addresses those bands and even asks for your suggestions.
With the birth of this column, my friends came up to me and demanded that I take on The Decemberists, an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. Sepcifically brought to my attention was their third full album “Picaresque,” which came out in 2005 on the Kill Rock Stars record label.
Before this week, pretty much all I had heard by The Decemberists was “July, July,” from their album “Castaways and Cutouts,” and 50 seconds of “The Mariner’s Revenge Song.” To be fair, I hadn’t really seen all that they could offer. “July, July” is almost as mainstream as The Decemberists get, and while I found the music fun, I didn’t think it anything spectacular. The short clip I heard from “Mariner’s Revenge” was on a crappy car radio that was drowned out by a friend practically foaming at the mouth ranting about how amazing the song was.
From the very first track of “Picaresque,” I was hooked. “The Infanta” offers driving rhythms with a spectacular orchestration of instruments including horns, guitar, piano, and strings — it was love at first listen. A mix of rock chords and Spanish fiesta sounds (along with a nifty use of the Neapolitan chord, aka, a major chord a half-step above the I chord), this lead track blew me away. It screams “CRANK ME UP!” With such a musically strong first track, it sets the bar pretty high for the rest of the album.
I was only 11% disappointed, and 89% “Oh freaking yeah” with the rest of the album.
The Decemberists seem to take one musical feeling per track and stick with it. 10 seconds in, you know the flavor of the whole song. This works for their albums because they turn out like a Jelly Belly sampler bag: plenty of flavors and most of them tasty. However, if you’re looking for songs that don’t repeat sections of harmonic ideas or use the same melody over and over with different words, it may have you digging the first 2 minutes of each of their songs, and then flipping to the next track, like many who suffer from musical ADD. The songs are not dynamically flat. The group continually adds extra layers of instruments and riffs, especially in their storytelling songs. For example “Mariner’s Revenge Song,” has a whimsical instrumental section complete with accordion, tuba and mandolin that differs from the other nine verses telling the Mariner’s tale.
This is not to say that a varied choice of instruments is The Decemberists’ gimmick or their only selling point. The band offers borderline absurdist epics to rock out to, with a mix of childish grinning and random “what the fuck?” moments.
Specifically the aforementioned eight minute, forty-seven second “Mariner’s Revenge Song” or the colorful “The Infanta” are definitely my favorite tracks. Fun storytelling of bygone times and campy, yet intelligent lyrics are The Decemberists’ strengths.
While their introspective pieces are musically beautiful, there are other groups out there (Iron and Wine, Belle and Sebastian) that clearly outrank them. But there are a couple of choice songs to listen for on “Picaresque” if this is your style: “Eli, the Barrowboy” and “Of Angels and Angles.”
The album is then fleshed out with a few tracks that are more middle of the road as opposed to “loud and pounding” or “angsty and introverted.” A great example of this is their anti-war/satirical song “16 Military Wives.” Catchy and witty, the song (and the music video which can be seen online) remind me of the movie “The Royal Tenenbaums” in approach and sense of style, except with more of a plot.
So if I have all these great things to say about them, where does the 11% disappointment come in? Well, it started off so great that it was just so hard to live up to it’s beginning. The tracks get a little repetitive as the album goes on, but the originality of the overall sound more than outweighs this. Lead singer Colin Meloy’s voice is also an acquired taste that may turn some listeners off at first with it’s nasal quality, but it later folds into the texture of the songs, and works out nicely.
All in all? I give The Decemberists 8.7 out of 10 flying dirigibles.
LISTEN TO: “The Infanta,” “Mariner’s Revenge Song,” “16 Military Wives”
GET THEM: decemberists.com, iTunes, Amazon.com.
John Coons is a senior Music Education major who has performed with the Portland Opera, sings Jazz gigs, conducts two choirs, and was in a Queen tribute band. To say that he likes a wide variety of music is an understatement.
Send your “You Gotta Check Them Out!” To John Coons at [email protected] and prepare to be “That Super-Fan” that introduced all the world to the musical glory of that awesome death metal/ska group, “Poker Playing Death-Grannies!”