The Decemberists The Hazards of Love Rating: 9.1 Label: Capitol Records Release: March 17, 2009

All things considered, there really is nothing surprising about The Hazards of Love, the newest release from Portland, Oregon’s The Decemberists. Colin Meloy has been singing about rakes and rastabouts, corn crakes, villains and damsels in distress for as long as anyone can remember. His lyrical stylings have always been “in period,” but his stories of mariners, legionnaires, government spies and little boy prostitutes have always been limited to short forms of expression. Even at their most ambitious, the concepts only stretched out over 10-12 minutes or a few tracks. But their last record, 2006’s major-label debut The Crane Wife, expanded a few songs into a larger concept (albeit a half-assed one), so it makes sense that their 5^th full length would be born out of musical theater, for which The Hazards of Love was originally conceived. While Meloy eventually dashed the theater aspirations (for now, anyway), the LP remains a single story that unfolds across 17 tracks. The record, which gets its name from a 1966 EP from UK folk singer Anne Briggs, follows a young woman’s (Margaret) adventure with her shape-shifting lover (William), his jealous adopted mother (The Queen), a filicidal villain (The Rake), ghost children and an apparently sentient body of water. If it all comes across as a bit pretentious, that’s because it is…this album is meant to be listened to in a plush leather chair with expensive headphones, a lyrics sheet, and (depending on your level of erudition) a dictionary.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t rock. All the lyrical bombast and operatic pretense would fail miserably if Meloy & Co. had let the music slide. Forgoing the multi-song suite organization of The Crane Wife, The Hazards of Love gives each movement its own track, instantly making the music more accessible, and allowing standout tracks like the riff-heavy, prog/metal “A Bower Scene” well…stand out. But thematic elements persist, of course, and the four-part titular theme is told in four parts, spread out across the album. “The Wanting Comes in Waves” is reprised near the end of the album, as is William’s chorus from “Won’t Want For Love,” on the excellent “Margaret in Captivity,” which borrows heavily from, of all places, Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.” Two of the album’s more memorable tracks, “Annan Water” and first single “The Rake’s Song” stand on their own quite well, independent of the album’s narrative. The single, an upbeat, bouncy number, seems like the perfect introduction for the new Decemberists fan, despite (or perhaps because of) its morbid subject matter and the heinous villainy of its subject. “Annan Water,” arguably the album’s best track, features Meloy’s acoustic guitar prominently, with a dark, haunting sound that seems to bellow and ring out at the same time (for further evidence, see Meloy’s cover of Morrissey’s “Jack the Ripper”). Sonically, the album is tightly constructed, beautifully composed and occasionally, catchy. But their high-minded brand of poetic literary rock will undoubtedly be lost upon those with no taste for lyric sheets, concept albums and what amounts to, in many ways, some of the “whitest” music ever made.

The album’s roots lie firmly in the United Kingdom; the story is set in southwest Scotland, along the banks of the river Annan and deep within her famed Taiga forests. Musically, the record channels Britain’s 60s folk revivalists (Briggs, Shirley Collins), teaming it with more progressive 70s rock influences (Black Sabbath, Hawkwind and Led Zeppelin). Oddly enough, this mix gives them an ironically contemporary sound, especially on “The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing,” which sounds like it could be the new single from Vancouver’s unabashed prog-metalheads, Black Mountain.

The Decemberists have always been recognized for their varied instrumental talents, sometimes to excess (the mix for 2005’s Picaresque featured 80 tracks). But their music has always suffered from a severe lack of strong supporting female vocals. Rather than eschewing them altogether (an impossibility considering the nature of their songs) or resorting to Autotune (gasp!), the group enlists the assistance of an all-star cast of vocalists, from Robyn Hitchcock and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, to featured players Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond, voicing Margaret) and Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond, voicing The Queen). Stark’s voice is beautiful, and is featured prominently across the record, but it is Worden that steals the show as the envious Queen. Her voice easily surpasses former Decemberist Petra Haden’s as the most powerful female vocal on a Decemberists track to date. And while the children’s choir (featured on “Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)”) is quickly becoming an indie rock cliché, Meloy can rest assured that no one else has used them to voice murdered ghost children. It’s brilliant, and yet undeniably creepy. Sounds about right.

Written by: Matthew Ismael Ruiz on March 24th, 2009 | Filed under Music Reviews