“The Rake’s Song”
from the album The Hazards of Love
2009
iTunes
In many ways, the Decemberists‘ career path mirrors that of a developing dramatist: First came the catchy one-act set pieces, lovely, lilting indie-pop songs with a baroque bent on the band’s early albums. They were followed by ever more involved story lines and themes, resulting in a full-length narrative: the 2007 song cycle The Crane Wife, based on a Japanese folk tale.
The album, their major-label debut, mixed the chamber-pop sound of piano and various stringed instruments with dense prog-rock passages of that evoked nothing so much as the 1973 album A Passion Play. That is to say, the Decemberists are sounding a lot like their generation’s Jethro Tull.
The Portland, Ore., band’s latest is another album-length fable, this time about a woman named Margaret, her shape-shifting forest-dwelling lover William and various obstacles, an evil queen, a murderous rake between them and bliss.
Not only are there different characters, there are different vocalists to portray them. Decemberists front man Colin Meloy voices William in his reedy tenor, and Becky Stark from the group Lavender Diamond sings Margaret’s parts in a high, pretty voice. Shara Worden of the band My Brightest Diamond plays the queen with stern bluster.
The story unfolds over 17 tracks that draw from a broad sonic palette, with acoustic guitar and accordion on the tender “Isn’t It a Lovely Night,” uneasy discord from violins on “The Queen Approaches” and fast chugging guitars and foreboding organ on “The Abduction of Margaret.”
It’s a far-reaching and ambitious album, stronger than its predecessor and full of gallant wordplay and vivid imagery — so vivid, in fact, that a stage adaptation (with papier mache trees and vaudevillian costumes, naturally) seems like a natural next step.