OMG... The Decemberists' new album.... HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIP IT!!!!

[WillMagic]

Just picked up this album yesterday.

It's awesome. Best album I've listened to this year.

[amplify]

[ QUOTE ]
In the lyrically impaired alt-rock world, Colin Meloy is lionized for his literary prowess because his reading predates Bret Easton Ellis and he knows what "picaresque" means. That was the title of the Decemberists' 2005 Kill Rock Stars album, which came complete with such arcana as a barrow boy, an infanta and a veranda. Supposedly inspired by the Japanese tale of the same name, The Crane Wife makes no concessions to its major label, unless engineering counts. Among its ten tracks are two song cycles that exceed ten minutes; among its topics are a Civil War romance, meat-cleaver murderers and a damsel dispatched with saber and pistol.

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

[/ QUOTE ]

WTF? Does Christgau just read the lyric sheet and pump out these idiotic paragraphs? This isn't even about the album.

[private joker]

Agreed -- too much of the rock criticism/writing about The Decemberists, especially this album, focuses on the lyrics and Meloy's storytelling. Sure, that defines the band, and it's interesting. But more important are the musical leaps and bounds the band has taken. They are first and foremost musicians, and since their sound has evolved so well and the dynamics, instrumentation, and production on this record is so artistically vibrant, why not talk about that as well?

[Jasper109]

Crap, Robert Christgau is still reviewing music. I seem to remember reading some of his reviews/articles in Rolling Stone some 25 years ago. Dude sure has longevity in the business.

[EricW]

I just downloaded this and although I'm not musically intelligent enough to understand the story telling, this stuff sounds pretty good.

[amplify]

The storytelling works really well if isolated into 3 sections: The Island, The Crane Wife and The Rest (like Shankhill (a masterpiece of macabre imagery) and Valencia.) I haven't listened to it enough times yet to integrate the three, if they even do.

[nath]

[ QUOTE ]
Crap, Robert Christgau is still reviewing music. I seem to remember reading some of his reviews/articles in Rolling Stone some 25 years ago. Dude sure has longevity in the business.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, that passage Amplify quoted is from a ROLLING STONE review?
Hmm... maybe it's not just hipster music writers/reviewers who are insufferable... it's ANYONE who tries to write about indie music!

BTW Amplify you should pick up their first two albums as well. Castaways and Cutouts has been a personal favorite of mine for quite some time.

[private joker]

WOW -- now there's at least two B-sides floating around out there from The Crane Wife.

"After the Bombs" is a gorgeous, quiet piano ballad. The other one I have is "The Culling of the Fold," a good but weirder ditty. You guys should be industrious and try to find them.

[Sasha Cohen]

Yankee Bayonet is really good. Can't stop listening to it.

[Quinn Warren]

C&C > The Crane Wife > Picaresque, though I've only had The Crane Wife for two weeks, so that's subject to change.

Culling the Fold is already one of my favorites, though.