The Decemberists: The King Is Dead review
The Portland quintet have returned with a country-infused concoction of American folk rock and blues to create a tracklist that makes it easy to forget their previous wrong-doings.
Their last album, “The Hazards of love,” was a convoluted mass of fashions and influences that left it difficult to distinguish the band, let alone the genre.
Since 2009, The Decemberists have been busy recording album no 6, entitled “The King Is Dead,” a record which off the back of previous work could have been over-willingly constructed around feelings of anxiety and a yearning to be liked.
This thankfully, is not the case.
In the opening number, “Don’t Carry it all,” we are welcomed by a screaming harmonica and thumping drum beat, swiftly accompanied by Colin Meloy’s gutsy yet soulful vocal, “Here we come to a turning of the season, Witness to the arc towards the sun.”
This lays the foundation from which the album builds its own sense of identity, with an emphasis on minimalism and simplicity, generating ideas around the smells and sensations associated with all four seasons.
This doesn’t mean to say you can disregard the slight whine heard from the violin in the beautifully crafted “Down by the water,” which when accompanied by Jenny Conlee’s backing choral makes for perfect listening.
Notation must be made to Meloy’s lyrical ability also. His progression as a writer is perfectly exemplified in “June Hymn,” an insightful peek into the plight of a young man’s love for his soul mate, environment, and the notion that someday he will lose both: “Hear the hymn to welcome in the day, heralding a summer's early sway, and all the bulbs all coming in, to begin, thrushes beating battle with the wind, disrupts my reverie again.”
Essentially, the album is a cerebral mix between the vocal tones of Michael Stipe, coherent with the lyrical prowess of Ben Gibbard within a country-folk context.
It would seem that a re-connection with the bands roots was all that was needed to create a masterful piece of music.
Songs to look out for: Calamity song, Don’t carry it all and June hymn.
