The Decemberists

So the new EP is pretty much uniformly better than anything on the recent full-length. Gone are the country-tinged R.E.M. aping tracks, back to the more folksy and proggy stuff that I prefer. Their Dead cover isn't half bad.

just learned that this band has a song called 'the chimbley sweep'

and thus that i've wasted 17 years by failing to concentrate my hatred upon them

they're a great band with a great catalog (although after 10 top-class years, the decline seems to have set in on the last two albums)

man, the new single is bleak. they sound 100% out of ideas, going through motions, lifeless, etc.

maybe the album will be better, but i'm not hopeful.

Yeah, I'd agree with that, but also your previous post from three years ago, the last two albums weren't very exciting either. Would love a return to like The Crane Wife, but I'm not holding out much hope for that.

Oh totally. Although each of those had a handful of good songs, I'd say, and this one seems worse than just about anything on either one. I can't believe it's the first single.

I didn't expand on this last night when I posted, but: This band feels like an obligation at this point - come together every five years, record the latest batch of songs, go on tour, bank some dough, then go off and do what you really want to be doing (for Colin) / do whatever pays the bills (for the rest of them) for another five.

You won't find a bigger defender of their first decade than me. Everything through King Is Dead is brilliant, imo. But this one sounds like someone told AI to produce a Colin Meloy song.

At least they're bringing Ratboys with them on tour this summer.

Wow, you're right. I used to adore this band when I was just getting into that Pitchfork/indie scene, just after their first LP. Saw them about five times between Her Majesty and Crane Wife, even though this required an hour and a half drive to a college town. The first time was at a venue with a stage small enough that they couldn't leave without disassembling their gear, so they just sat down for ten minutes before the encore and told us to occupy ourselves. I remember downloading mp3s of the live Picaresque tracks before they were recorded and tabbing them out for posting on their forum. I drifted away when it seemed like their quirkiness was being smoothed out, and just because my passion moved on, as it does.

I haven't revisited those LPs since; I'm wary that I'll find it all too cutesy-cringey now. That'd I'd feel faintly embarrassed, like when I find my amateurish attempts at music blogging from back then, or old LiveJournal entries. I'd rather keep the memories as they are. Still, I'm running through "Leslie Anne Levine" in my mind and it still sounds pretty/haunting.

Yeah, I gave "Burial Ground" another listen last night and alpine 100% otm with it sounding like Colin Meloy AI.

My wife and I saw them several times in their early days, when they were a somewhat niche act in small clubs.

I still like the first several records, but haven't kept up and probably won't.

Man, I love "Burial Ground"! Surprised to see so much dumping on it here, it's a total earworm. Basically Decemberists + Shins in a good way (which I wouldn't have predicted at this point). I'm not a huge Decemberists fan, I liked some of their early albums but not super attached to them. I just think this scans as like a good lost Paisley Underground track.

Haven't played this yet, but slightly encouraged by them going all epic again... new 19-minute song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nhLuHWcTdo