Album Review: “The King is Dead” by the Decemberists, 1st Draft

This album is addictive. Its gorgeous arrangements and compelling lyrics—sometimes intricate and mysterious, sometimes as simple as garden dirt—are irresistible. It bellows, it hums, it trills and clanks. But it glides along so smoothly and wholeheartedly, when its forty minutes are done, you just want to start it again. It is a near perfect album—whiny arguments about such music not being “your taste” and therefore no good hold no sway here. There is such a thing as objective quality: something is done so well, done to its utmost in its genre, that even if it is not your cup of tea, you cannot argue against its inherent excellence. The King is Dead is just that—simply and inarguably great music.

The Decemberists, based in Portland, Oregon, are known for long-winded, concept albums. Their 2009 The Hazards of Love was a rambling rock-opera thick with allegory and thorny plot lines. This is a nerd's nerd band, an English major or drama queen's band. Lead Singer Colin Meloy--who writes all the song lyrics and melodies, bringing the songs to the rest of the band nearly finished--is a lover of literature and language; historical allusions abound in his songs. On the band's 2006 album The Crane Wife, Meloy sings in “Sons and Daughters” about war and hearing the “bombs fade away”: “Take up your arms/ Sons and daughters/ We will arise from the bunkers/ By land, by sea, by dirigible.” But it is Meloy's clear, high-spirited delivery of the end-line notes that keeps the song hopeful and catchy. That and the joy of someone inserting a word like “dirigible” so artfully—singably—into a song.

But with The King is Dead the Decemberists break away from concept, go folk-rock-country and give plentiful nods to their influences—R.E.M., The Smiths, Neil Young, the Band, and Emmylou Harris, to name a few. R.E.M.'s Peter Buck plays on three tracks, and Gillian Welch sings on seven. “Don't Carry It All,” the ablum's opener, booms in with the stellar band's funky and classical mix: drums, bass, accordion, violin, mandolin, bouzouki, harmonica, pedal steel, and tambourine. Meloy entreats us to “raise a glass to the turnings of the season,” while revealing hints of his Irish heritage as his voice wavers and trills ever so slightly around words such as “trillium” and lines such as “upon a plinth that towers t'wards the trees.” “Calamity Song,” with Peter Buck on his 12-string, could be mistaken for early, jangly R.E.M. at its best, and Meloy teases with enigmatic, historical Michael Stipe-like lyrics: “Hetty Green/ Queen of supply-side bonhomie bone-drab/ (Know what I mean?).” The song is a clear tribute to R.E.M.'s hit “It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” and its dream-like lyrics and irresistible tempo infiltrate and don't let go.

Meloy's voice is round and rich; his enunciation, word play and word choice is charming on this album. The song themes can be playful, as in “Calamity Song,” and “All Arise” but also soft and comforting, as in “January Hymn” and “June Hymn.” The two latter songs are gorgeously simple, pastoral odes that quietly mark and honor how the earth changes month to month, with both songs having a subtle thread of entreaty to a loved or lost person. In “All Arise,” a kick-off-your-shoes and spin your partner kind of song, Meloy croons about a thief: “So the dollar shop shoppers/ Broke the lock and they knocked you down/ Better call the coppers/ If you need someone to push you around.” There are culverts, there are shotguns. With barroom piano and hoedown fiddle, it's as singable and danceable as songs get.

“The King is Dead” is a celebration of life, complete with partying, funerals and quiet moments pondering the jasmine in the garden. The exquisite arrangements buoy you through every swell, and Meloy's skill as a singer and song writer supply lush text and context for life's sunshine moments and for its storms. It is worth listening to over and over again.