Review:

on 2011-07-28 toughenuprob Said:

With The Hazards of Love, the Decemberists repackaged the rock opera with woodsy folk instrumentation and gorgeous melodies, while mining the forms rich seam of storytelling. Never ones to stay the course, The King is Dead shows the band sailing once again into new waters, if not uncharted ones.

The confident stomp of opener Dont Carry it All essentially sets the tone for the whole record  gone are the seedy character vignettes and musical pomposities, making way for something more homespun. Where Colin Meloys lyrics once sketched portraits of chimney sweeps, barrow boys, and unlucky sailors, they now follow little distinct narrative, becoming more introspective in the process. Instead of looking to 1960s British folk for influence, the band turn their attentions to their native shores. As a result of this stylistic homecoming, the album sounds incredibly cohesive and self-assured, all sympathetic harmonies, bright acoustic strum, and lilting pedal steel. Lead single Down By the Water is a prime example, its yowling harmonica and bold guitars channelling Bob Dylan and Neil Young. But if The King is Deads main strength is that it sounds comfortable and warmly familiar, this is also its main weakness.

The favourable critical and fanbase reception of albums as diverse as The Hazards of Love, The Crane Wife and Picaresque stand as testament to the skill of the Decemberists as songwriters, that they can twist the unruly strands of their myriad influences into consistently affecting and engaging albums. So its a bit of a disappointment that The King is Dead sounds so well trodden. Calamity Song could be Counting Crows if Meloys voice were replaced with Adam Duritz, and Rise to Me sounds uncomfortably close to Crazy Horses I Dont Want to Talk About It. Later in the record, June Hymn is lovely, if a dead ringer for Her Majestys Red Right Ankle, and whilst This is Why We Fight varies the tone with Smithsy arpeggios, its kind of a case of too little, too late. Closer Dear Avery is haunting enough, but hardly possessed of the hair-raising qualities of previous Decemberists songs in the same vein, Shankill Butchers being a case in point.

Its not that the Decemberists have changed  the patchwork quilt that is their discography is a big part of their appeal  its almost that they arent changing enough. Taken out of context, The King is Dead is a solid, if unremarkable, slice of Americana, an album that sees the Decemberists settled, considered, and thoroughly at home. However, in light of the miraculous and magical nature of their previous output, its something of a damp squib.
Rating: 5/10

Review:

on 2011-04-01 CharlesMartel Said:

With the release of the Decemberists' previous album, "The Hazards of Love", I noted that I was looking forward to where there music would take them next with some anticipation. I had enjoyed their particular brand of Americana with a hint of rock, wrapped around themes which were drawn straight from mythology or history, and it seemed as if they had found for themselves a niche which they were making there own. The band it seemed had chosen to draws on a vast treasure house of potential stories and tales and uses them to create some fascinating music.

However, when it comes to "The King Is Dead" the result is like turning on the TV expecting to see the football and finding instead that Sky have pre-empted it with the Figure Skating World Championships. The music wrapped around a single theme is gone. Even the style has changed. The band now seem to be intent on paying homage to their influences and their heroes. For a start, the album's title is (supposedly) a reference to Michael Jackson; Peter Buck makes a guest appearance - and on a track which sounds so similar to REM you get the impression that he was invited to do it in order to avoid charges of copyright infringement; and the album's final track is a tongue-in-cheek reference to their (perceived) similarity to Neutral Milk Hotel.

The inside cover of "The Crane Wife" featured the members of the band dressed in American style late nineteenth century finery. The inside cover of "The King Is Dead" suggests the band have not only reverted to that concept, but have given up the twenty-first century altogether and decided to grow wheat collectively in 1880's Kansas. No more are there tales of magical creatures, shapeshifters, unruly street kids with good hearts and evil murderers on the rampage. Now while those features of the band's music may not have been to everyone's taste, at least they provided substance. With this album they have swapped that for an altogether less satisfying mix of American roots and nostalgia for the Good Old Days which, as we all know, were never really all that good in the first place. Gone is the big picture; it has been replaced by a much narrow focus on homespun yarns and small town concepts.

And yet, in some ways, the material here is not as bad as these opening paragraphs may suggest. The rather weak and insipid opener aside, "Calamity Song" is a strong enough number with a narrow world view look at surviving the coming devastation and is the strongest clue to the REM borrowings of a lot of this album. I couldn't help but smirk at the title of "Rox in the Box" and, until I corrected by visual mis-spelling wondered why an American band would write a song about a much-touted, much-travelled English striker who never really lived up to expectations. The album's strongest track is without doubt "Down by the Water", which provides some relief from the rather laid-back and sometimes lacklustre sound of much of the album. It is a pity then that they follow it with probably the worst track on the album, "All Arise!"

Were it not for the fact that this is, as you would expect from the Decemberists, a well-played, well-crafted album, "The King Is Dead" would prove to be a huge disappointment. Like the last time I reviewed a Decemberists' album, I am looking forward to the next one with some anticipation. I just hope that they do not do a Mike Scott on me, and once they are sated with the pleasantries of rural life, go back and make some more music about characters who have a story to tell, a story which we would actually want to hear.
Rating: 6/10