Front Page Reviews & AIR

In a most unlikely turn of events (at least in this reviewer’s mind), The Decemberists have released the first essential record of 2011.  Over their first five albums, Colin Meloy and company have made their reputation on whimsical concept albums full of story-songs that were “quirky” at best and, at their worst, sounded like something a nerdy 8^th grader might write after reading Moby Dick for the first time.  They often came off as faux-intellectuals: long on big words and short on real meaning.  I have to admit, from the time I first heard their sea-chanteys on Picaresque, they were near the top of my “most annoying indie band” list.  I would never have thought them capable of producing something approximating a truly great album – something strong and tender, something with wisdom, something soulful.  I’m happy to say I was wrong.

The King is Dead is a compact, confident, stripped down set of brilliant folk/country/rock songs.  In other words, it’s about as far from their last album (2009’s bizarre and overlong “rock opera,” The Hazards of Love) as possible.  After touring on that record and playing it each night in its entirety, Meloy said he “just kind of wanted to play some normal songs!”  On The King is Dead, the song forms and arrangements may be more familiar, but this kind of consistently focused songwriting is not normal.  Meloy has always been an obviously talented musician, but he finally challenges himself as a songwriter here.  After all those years of story-time about characters like “Eli the Barrow Boy,” Meloy turns closer to home.  A long way from the high seas and days of yore, there exists the real Colin Meloy – a 36-year-old guy who lives outside Portland with a wife and family and listens to Neil Young and REM.  In other words, someone I can relate to.  On The King is Dead, we finally get to meet that guy. 

The album’s opening song is a revelation.  “Don’t Carry it All” starts with a foot-stomping drum beat and Meloy’s newfound harmonica.  Immediately, we can tell that The Decemberists are after something more elemental here: 

Here we come to a turning of the season

Witness to the arc towards the sun

A neighbor's blessed burden within reason

Becomes a burden borne of all and one

These lines are the perfect opening to an album that is reaching for something bigger by making it simple.  All the album’s themes are introduced here as well: changing seasons, the pull of nature, the struggles of life, and the importance of carrying each other through, cutting right down to what matters.  Then the second verse arrives, bringing the heavy bass line and the voice of Gillian Welch, and I’m sold.  I’m buying it.  The Decemberists are no longer a joke, they are a force to be reckoned with.  By the time we reach the last verse, it doesn’t sound like naïve hippie nonsense; it sounds like Gospel:

And you must bear your neighbor’s burden within reason

And your labors will be borne when all is done.

While “Don’t Carry it All” and the single “Down By the Water” are the absolutely infectious rockers that first grabbed me, the album’s tender moments are just as powerful.  “Rise to Me” is a classic country ballad that keeps its authenticity by never parodying the form.  The sincerity is clear in the simple words: “Big mountain, wide river / There’s an ancient pull…” or “My darling, my sweetheart / I am in your sway.”  When Meloy does pull out his trademark thesaurus in the pure folk of “June Hymn,” it seems effortless and natural, adding to the beauty of the song:

And once upon it

The yellow bonnets

Garland all the lawn

And you were waking

And day was breaking

A panoply of song

The other folk ballad, “January Hymn,” is the album’s tender masterpiece of simplicity.  Just a few thoughts about the sort of memories a winter day calls to mind, but delivered with the perfect mixture of nostalgia, melancholy and hope – it all rings so true.  Meloy never oversells it either, just letting his voice sound its age, with the childlike tones fighting to break through the layers of winters past.

The album’s title could be taken as a reference to The Smiths’ album The Queen is Dead, and there is a bit of an homage here in “This is Why We Fight.”  While Meloy doesn’t quite imitate Morrissey, the layered guitar sound is pure Johnny Marr.  The more obvious homage, however, is “Calamity Song,” which blatantly rips off the riff from REM’s “Talk About the Passion.”  However, it’s all OK here, because REM’s Peter Buck actually joins in on the song (as well as on two others), and it’s pretty catchy as well.

Completing the album is the spot-on production, arrangement and playing from everyone involved.  Jenny Conlee’s ever-present accordion fits in perfectly, as well as Chris Funk’s tasteful pedal steel.  The rhythm section is also as tight as ever.  It only goes to show how super-talented musicians can thrive on simplicity, imbuing it with depth that goes beyond the actual chords and notes.  The guest appearance of Gillian Welch on seven of the ten tracks adds the finishing touch of authenticity, as her harmonies help to humanize Meloy’s angular voice into something a little warmer.

In the end, The King is Dead is a triumph.  While it may not be Harvest (which Meloy calls “the quintessential barn record” and an inspiration for King), it doesn’t need to be.  The Decemberists are not Neil Young, or REM for that matter.  They are themselves.  And something tells me that this album is as close as they’ve come to putting themselves on record.