ReviewThe Decemberists (arguably my favourite band of the past 20 years) 9th studio album enters my personal Decemberists chart at position…#9. Sorry guys, for all the online reviews I’ve seen claiming it to be a “return to form” and a “triumph” and Colin Meloy himself claiming it is their best album (!) this is a regression.
Of the 13 songs inside 12 of them should have been reserved for the post album outtakes EP the band regularly release. “Long White Veil” nearly made it but something is very missing from it; “William Fitzwilliam” lifts the verse melody note for note from the Drive-By Truckers song “The Deeper In”; “Burial Ground” is a badly disguised re-write of the Beach Boys “Sloop John B”; “Born To The Morning” steals its intro from “Hey Joe”. Only “Never Satisfied” gets close to former glories and the closing “Joan In The Garden” is a self indulgent abomination. It all feels lazy and like enough attention wasn’t paid to most of it.
A non music related whinge…I ordered this in the UK from a UK seller (Rough Trade who delivered it 2 days before release day to their credit) but it arrived in one of those horrid American “board” sleeves. This means once I’ve removed the records from said sleeve, put them in archival anti-stat inners (as I do with all my records), the records ain’t ever going back in the sleeve.