The Decemberists’ third LP, Picaresque, opens with a hunting horn’s cry, a drum roll and a bang before it settles down to offer some of the sweetest and most well-orchestrated of the band’s work to date.
The wildly prolific group, which has released two EPs and three LPs since 2002, is known for its intricately constructed fantasy world of pirates and prostitutes. That the album title refers to rascals’ tales shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the band’s discography. Few contemporary musicians write songs as narratively creative as those penned by Decemberists front man Colin Meloy. He seems to view the nineteenth century through the haze of an opium den, with its seedy tales of stranded mariners and Spanish princesses.
It’s not just the subject matter that makes the group unique; it’s their sound. Theirs is a countrified-folk-pop amalgamation that bounces through cheerful pop, like “The Infanta,” and sighs along with Meloy’s ballads, most noteworthy of which is band-highlight “The Engine Driver.” Alongside the standard guitar/bass/drums combo, accordions, trumpets and violins combine to create progressive music fitted to the group’s old-fashioned ethos.
Of course, eight-minute tales of mariners lost at sea and sports mishaps aren’t for everyone. It takes a willingness to listen closely, more akin to reading a story than listening to a pop song.
Surprisingly, the album benefits from the production of Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie fame. The Decemberists has created a consistent album, but fails to reach the genius of their debut, Castaways and Cutouts, or the outlandishness of their experimental EP The Tain. Settle in and let the Decemberists tell you a story.
