The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

I discovered The Decemberists through The Crane Wife and this is way more epic and daring in sound to anything that i'd previously heard from them. Concept album kept coming to mind but rock opera fits better. It's a record you can imagine being acted on stage especially in such tracks as "the wanting comes..."(great tune!) and "The Queen's rebuke..." with the back and forth between Meloy and Beth Stark(i think?)

It just sounds old-fashioned, in a good way.When "Isn't it a lovely night" started, i was like "what is this?" but then it ended up being a lovely little ditty.

It's full of cool suprises.Quality album.

Sold.

I love this album. I think it's really brave and very unexpected.

NPR is streaming their SXSW kickoff performance of the complete Hazards of Love from last night.

As mentioned earlier, if you loved The Tain, look out ... your new obsession is here, waiting patiently.

Also: The. Rake's. Song.

Yeah, The Rake's Song is pretty amazing. This is definitely my most anticipated album right now. This year is shaping up to be pretty great as far as music is concerned.

Yeah, I know...but I still like having a physical copy. What can I say? I'm still stuck in the past.

I love Shara Worden. I saw the Decemberists down in Milwaukee a couple years back, and they had My Brightest Diamond opening for them. It was the first time I'd heard of them or Worden, and they just blew me away. I couldn't believe this amazing, powerful voice was coming from that gorgeous little slip of a thing on stage. Then she came out and performed "Yankee Bayonet" with the Decemberists, which further cemented my love for her.

That she's guesting on this new album has me giddy.

I've only seen clips of her performing live, and it's always very impressive, but it doesn't seem to translate all that well to her albums, which are only okay. It's like her songwriting has to catch up to her voice and knack for achieving the right atmosphere, instrumentally. But Matt's right - she's so good on this.

She and Becky Stark (whom I'm far less fond of, but she's good on the album) are both on board for their upcoming tour. The band's playing two sets on every stop - the first is the new album in its entirety, the second is miscellaneous other stuff. And they're playing Milwaukee again, BTW.

I would have to agree with you on this, as I bought "Bring Me the Workhorse," and I love about half of it. She's still amazing, but some of the songs are just dull. It's a completely different story when she's performing them live, though.

And I would love to see the Decemberists in concert again. Wanna get a group of Wisconsin chewers together and go?

Sadly, they're not playing two nights in D.C. I wonder what I'm going to get at that one-night stop.

MissZooey and I already have tickets, but it's general admission, so I could see meeting up beforehand.

Whatever, Matt. I'll let you know when I have time to read AND comprehend.

Yeah, which I would assume means no openers (a mixed blessing, since the likeliest candidates would be the guests - I'd love to see My Brightest Diamond, but not so much Lavender Diamond), but a full night of Decemberists goodness.

Cool...if I can round up any people to accompany me, I'm there. I'll let you know soon.

I'm confident in this one...I'm getting Andrew Bird.

Huh. Yeah, I just looked on their site, and they have openers listed for some dates, but not all. Bird would be awesome. Especially if they con him into sitting in on some songs. But I'm kind of surprised that, if they were going to have openers at all, they didn't just have Worden or Stark perform, since they're along for the ride, anyway.

Pitchfork's review of their SXSW performance has me pretty excited. Here's a notable excerpt:

This is why I want My Brightest Diamond to be better than they are. You can hear that Worden has this sort of performance in her, but the albums are so damn restrained. Maybe this'll bring it out on her next release.

I haven't loved an album this much this quickly after first hearing it in a long time. I just think it is flat out brilliant. Bought it from itunes as soon as I heard it was available, and have listened to it non-stop since. I even just ordered it on vinyl from Amazon.

It's fucking great.

Entertainment Weekly absolutely eviscerated this in the newest issue. D+ review. Well, not really a review, more of a statement:

And that's it. That's the entire review.

EW can eat my asshole.

Same EW that gave the Jonas Brothers 3-D Experience and Watchmen the same grade, and Miley Cyrus a B in the same issue it just panned the Decemberists. It is a piece of shit rag.

If you're looking to download The Hazards of Love cheaply but legally, lala.com has the entire album available for $3.99.
(Amazon, my usual preferred MP3 vendor, is $8.99.)

The AV Club gave it a pretty positive write-up.

The vinyl arrived yesterday. It's a good listen (save for the fact you need to flip/change the record every 3 songs). I'm leaning towards declaring Annan Water as the album's highlight.

I'd have to look at the lyrics again, as I don't recall. Beyond that, though, I've listened to this all the way through three times, and I just grow to love it more and more. It works so well as a whole, but my favorite tracks right now are "Won't Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)," "The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid," and "The Rake's Song."

The very notion that someone would mash up Pentangle, Horslips and Jethro Tull, toss in guest vocals from Robyn Hitchcock and Shara Worden, and then name the result after an obscure album by Anne Briggs, would be recommendation enough.

The fact that it's fun to listen to is almost a bonus.

Thing I'm looking forward to the most when I see them perform this live in May : Chris Funk attacking his collection of all things strung.

He'll be keeping the guitar tech busy, me thinks.

Holy fuck do I love this album.

Me too. It took a couple of listens, but I'm glad I got it.

Yeah, I'm really warming up to it, too.

It didn't work for me until I really started paying attention to the narrative. I've always been a fan of Meloy's lyrics, but usually I took to the music before I really started paying attention to the words. In this case, I liked the music well enough initially, but it's probably the first time with a Decemberists album that I absolutely needed to take in the subject matter before the music really started to cohere. Without the storyline, the repeated motifs just come as indulgently repetitive.

Got my tickets for Radio City Music Hall in June.

Saw them live last night at the gorgeous Fox Theater in Oakland.

Great show. Live, The Hazards of Love definitely played best during the harder, crunchier moments -- Meloy's voice wasn't quite at his peak tonight during the first set, which diminished some of the early quieter songs. In the second set, the band was much looser, and Meloy doubled-down on his audience banter, often to funny (and always to charming) effect. Mainly stuff from The Crane Wife, but a few older favorites and a couple of covers as well. And silliness ... a "Decemberists Family Players" brief morality play about the Donner Party performed in the midst of the audience.

But let me now speak of the two guest ladies and their performances. Becky Stark took the stage in Lola Granola mode, her inner crystal clearly in full resonance. My wife compared her appearance to Rhonda Volmer from Big Love, complete with UEB-sanctioned pastel dress and that vacant 5,000-yard stare. She seemed to exist in a bubble of time-dilation, her every movement and chime glissando just barely slower than the speed of our continuum. And, vocally, she delivered.

Then came Shara Worden. An angry hurricane in a black leather miniskirt and silver tights, with a voice of command that shatters ancient rock. The energy she brought to "Repaid" and "The Queen's Rebuke" was instant and galvanizing -- the crowd could not get enough of her. When she wasn't busy blasting you with her earthly roar, she was punching and stomping her way across the stage. She was an absolute highlight.

If you love the album, you'll love the show.

Oh, and the opener was Other Lives -- and they were excellent. Really full sound from an orchestral rock quintet, kind of in a Leonard Cohen-meets-Radiohead vibe. I'll definitely be picking up their self-titled album.

Did Stark and Worden stick around for the second set? I've read that Worden's been doing the Laura Veirs part for "Yankee Bayonet," but I'm not sure if this means that they're onstage the whole time or if she just comes out for that.

Definitely. The band did do "Yankee Bayonet" with Worden (very nice), and Stark and Meloy did a country duet song I didn't know. They also did miscellaneous backing vocals after being called up individually. So, not the whole time, but a nice chunk of the second set.

Great show - the Hazards of Love half was tight and energetic and made me appreciate the structure of the album even more. The drum army effect on "The Rake's Song" was probably the biggest departure from the album, but the whole thing was more powerful live.

The second set was looser, and the setlist was pretty close to what I've been seeing online, but it was fun. Worden and Stark were only occasionally back onstage, but provided the highlight when the band kicked into a lively cover of Heart's "Crazy on You" with the ladies trading verses. Chris Funk didn't quite nail the guitar leads, but the vocals (especially Worden's) destroyed. This clip is from a different show, but you get the idea.

My wife was 8 months pregnant when we went to a Squeeze/UB40 show. We had to abandon our 3rd row seats and finish watching the show from way in the back because our daughter decided that dancing was too important to wait till she was born.

Fuck that. They're coming to Montreal for an outdoor festival, out of all things. I hate outdoor shows, and I'm not gonna pay 75$ for that.

Shit.

Pre-recorded kids voices, but they play the instrumental parts live. It holds together surprisingly well considering they don't seem to be using a click track (I didn't see earphones, in any case).

Just got back from Radio City, and near the end of the show, the band said, "Hey Count Floyd, what do you think would be awesome right now?" and so I said, "It would be awesome if Peter Buck came out right now and you guys covered 'Begin The Beguine'." So they did!

That was nice of them.

Wait, "Begin the Beguine," the Cole Porter song, or "Begin the Begin," the R.E.M. song? I only ask because I get the feeling that Meloy and Co. are just perverse enough to do the former (although I suspect it was the latter).

The latter.



ETA: I greatly enjoyed the show, but was real disappointed with the crowd. Tons of people showed up late (and I mean real late - post Rake's Song late), and I spent most of the duration of the first set craning my neck to try and watch the performance. I expect a few straglers in the first song or two as people always seem to be caught flat footed when the band goes on and they are sucking down nine dollar mixed drinks in the lobby, but this was ridiculous.

Shara Worden had the crowd in the palm of her hand, which was great to see.

I hadn't listened to the album more than a few times before seeing them live last Monday, and I've gotta say the live show has almost ruined this album for me. The live performance of the entire album was just a blast and ROCKED so much harder than the album. Something like The Queen's Rebuke, which is a great song on its own, sounds a little thin in the studio version after experiencing Worden and the band absolutely terrorize it live.

Glad I hadn't read all the way through this thread, because the Crazy On You cover near the end of the second set totally caught me by surprise (as reported it was GREAT, but also fun was watching the young lady in front of us, obviously a huge Decemberists fan, NOT react to this song which obviously meant nothing to her). Lulz at myself for being old.

Whoops! Got my R.E.M. puns mixed up.

Yeah, I got there around 8:40 thinking I had a solid half hour before they went on, and I just made it for the beginning of the show. I felt like a douche squeezing into the row in the dark, so if I stepped on your foot I apologize. And yeah, the people directly in front of me didn't get there until after The Rake's Song.

http://music.att.net/s/editorial.dll...ent=1&xslid=23

The Decemberists at Bonnaroo just about to start...

I never understand showing up late to a concert. Didn't they pay good money for this?