The Decemberists - The King Is Dead (Rough Trade)
4/5
By: Matt Tomiak
The King Is Dead is an album which goes back to basics, in as much as a band who have penned rock operas about anthropomorphic romance can possibly 'tone it down.'
The Decemberists aren't exactly know for their understated approach, and even the press release seems to be overstating it a bit with a reference to The King Is Dead's fustian 2009 predecessor The Hazards of Love as 'wildly ambitious and wildly acclaimed' - well, at least the first part of that is accurate.
This album is certainly less ornate than others in the Portland fivesome's back catalogue, and with guests including Gillian Welch and the involvement of R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, a jangly, country-tinged charm is ensured.
'Calamity Song' recalls 'Talk About The Passion' from Buck and co's classic debut LP Murmur and 'Down By The Water' is essentially a retread of 'The One I Love'. But their sixth studio album forsakes the Southern Gothic inscrutability that made early R.E.M. so captivating for something far more straightforward; if anything, 'The King Is Dead' would be better compared to the lucrative nu-folk blueprint established by Mumford & Sons and their ilk, the psychedelic-tinged rock of early noughties Scottish nearly-men Cosmic Rough Riders, or indeed R.E.M, circa their own major label streamlining at the end of the 1980s.
Colin Meloy's lyrics are still steeped in the archaic purple patches that have The Decemberists pegged in some dissenting quarters as overly fussy smart-arses ( 'Calamity Song' makes reference to 'the Panamanian child at the dowager empress' side', and 'June Hymn' to 'a barony of ivy' and 'a panoply of song'), although such flourishes may provide welcome respite to those view the majority of mainstream pop music as a depressing morass of auto-tuned, TXT SPK dominated drivel.
For all their lyrical pomp, Meloy's songs finally have room to breathe here, and emerge all the better for it.
The Decemberists - Down By The Water by SubNoise.es
Artists in this article: The Decemberists
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