Been listening to The Decemberists' new album, "The Hazards of Love," over the last couple of days.
Really interesting effort, and kind of a lovely concept. The band ended up writing a fairy tale - a real fairy tale, with edge and love and magic and horror and tragedy, all set to music. With a ton of hooks that pull you into repeat listening. It's one of those albums that may hit you funny the first time, but pulls you back to listen again, and becomes more rewarding each time.
The music in this album isn't like most concept albums. Rather than the usual concept album approach of songs and music as primary, with a story to try and tie that together, the story is prime and the music is subordinated. Its tone, underlying styles, and influences are all very much dictated by the point you're at in the story. They threw everything they had at that, from the quasi-medieval folk base to medieval, choir, hard rock, and multiple points in between, in order to get the emotional pitches they wanted. Some choices were pretty ballsy, starting with the opening Prelude and extending to the Faerie Queen's compelling, razor-edged sequences. The result is more "opera" than "rock," but to me it's faithful to the story they set out to tell. And very interesting.
So, is there a happy ending? Maybe it depends on your definition of "happy"...
You are aware that thy start concerts with the anthem of the old USSR and the name refers to "an 1825 revolt over the Imperial Russian succession that (founder) Meloy views as an attempted communist revolution"? Right?
Band Opening for Obama in Oregon Frequently Uses Soviet Anthem
And the references have been removed from the Wikipedia page?
Wikipedia Removes USSR Anthem Info from 'Decemberists' Page
I haven't heard the new album yet, but I really like the Crane Wife. Some of the songs are a little long, but Crane Wife parts I and III (in reverse order on the ablum) give me goosebumps. That doesn't happen very often, but something in the chords is just right.
yes, robohobo, I have heard the same thing. But I have stopped caring. Young socialism seems more interested in the arts and cannabis than a real political movement. I do try to play devil's advocate with young hipsters and talk about 'lead heart attacks', but I think groups like the decemberists are pretty harmless.
Unless.... OMG DON'T PLAY THE CD BACWARDS!
It should be "Decembrists", the accepted English spelling (from Dekabristi). Better yet, they should have just called themselves The Democrats, which is now far closer to a communist party than the Decembrists ever were. "Decembrist" is ultra-arch-right-wingnut in comparison, so maybe they should call themselves The Cheneys.
On the other hand, the Soviet Anthem is not a bad song. It has a melody, and other reactionary bourgeois features. But they'd better sing the verses with "Stalin lifts us up!" or they can just call themselves The Pussies.