The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

The Decemberists are sort of the Burnside Writer’s Collective’s ultimate band: lyrically literary, rich sound, and based in Portland. Yes, we like The Decemberists a whole lot.

What’s better, they’re no slouches when it comes to producing music. The Crane Wife is their fourth full-length album, and they’ve kept fans happy with a smattering of E.P.s and b-side releases. Picaresque came out just last year, Picaresquities came out a few months ago, and already we’ve got a new album to sink our teeth into. Not only is The Crane Wife timely, it’s also The Decemberists’ major label debut. The Decemberists aren’t woefully indie anymore…they’ve got marketing campaigns and big money backing them up now.

Many fans were nervous about how the big record contract would affect these guys, worrying that the days of Dickensian story arcs and sailors trapped in whales would be left behind. They can sleep easy now, and whoever at Capitol Records took a chance on this should get a big raise, even if The Decemberists never bring in a dime.

If anything, The Crane Wife pushes outward against previous Decemberist constraints. To push the analogy, The Crane Wife is to Picaresque as Kid A is to OK Computer. I might always prefer listening to the latters, but the formers are sure amazing.

But this isn’t a complaint. Bands like Radiohead, Wilco and The Decemberists should push the boundaries.

The Crane Wife starts out in patent form, a rich twelve-string strum and Colin Meloy’s distinctly crisp crow. For three minutes and forty-four seconds, the band keeps with that rich acoustic sound, building to a climactic fade-out. But at three minutes and forty-five second, an electric guitar rips in. At that point, The Decemberists change.

Not quite completely, though. The Crane Wife, in many aspects, keeps The Decemberist ethos alive and well. “Yankee Bayonet” is a Civil War epic, with Meloy teamed with Seattle songstress Laura Veirs. “Shankhill Butchers”, a haunting tale of a gang of killers, feels like Jack the Ripper-era London, and is nearly as frightening as Sufjan Stevens’ “John Wayne Gacy Jr.” “Summersong” and the sublime “Sons and Daughters” (which may be the album’s best track) keep on that wavelength.

The breaks hit in the middle, starting with track two, “The Island”, which starts with a Paul McCartney and the Wings jam, switches pace and sound a few times, goes through a crazy, prog-rock synthesizer jam (think the worst music of the 70’s) and closes with a soft acoustic pick, clocking in around twelve and a half minutes. It sounds awful, but I’m telling you, it works. “O Valencia!” and “The Perfect Crime #2” don’t sound like Electric Light Orchestra, but they’re different for The Decemberists. “When the War Came” plays like a sequel to Picaresque’s “16 Military Wives”, with darker content, like Meloy is saying, “Look, I told you things were screwed up, and you didn’t listen. Let me tell you again…” When he sings “And the war came/With a curse and a caterwaul”, you can’t help but think of the naive days when we thought “shock and awe” would fix every problem in the Middle East.

The Crane Wife is one of those albums that takes a few listens to get hold of, but the process is rewarding. The Decemberists are rewarding.

In the closing moments of the album, on “Sons and Daughters”, a three part vocal builds and builds, with the refrain, “Hear all the bombs fade away/Hear all the bombs fade away”, a chant, and I can’t help but wonder if Colin Meloy gets it, the idea of heaven.

The Crane Wife, The Decemberists: A-