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Uncategories Featured Album: The Hazards of Love

Featured Album: The Hazards of Love


Initially envisioned as an on stage musical, The Decemberists epic rock opera The Hazards of Love transitioned into a full length feature that has renewed the craft of album making in ways scarcely seen since the days of Pink Floyd's Animals.

This is in no way to suggest other bands haven't accomplished the ebb and flow, top to bottom piece of art that is an actual album. The Flaming Lips come to mind both for The Soft Bulletin, and my personal favorite At War With The Mystics; and Radiohead's latest, In Rainbows, simply solidifies their place as one of the, if not the best bands this generation has heard. That said, no modern band has mastered story telling like The Decemberists, and that puts them in a category all their own.

The Hazards Of Love not only stands strong against the bands former albums, but may indeed stand at the top. Sure, Hazards is a far cry from 2002's Castaways And Cutouts, it certainly lacks the overpowering nautical feel that caused so many to fall in love with the Portland-based quintet, but it has elements of those early days spliced with new and bigger sounds and ideas. 

A reoccurring theme is nothing new to The Decemberists, their nearly 20 minute single track EP The Tain was released in 2004,  and has the same chord progressions showing up time and again.

But an EP cannot compare to an entire album!

Where their previous albums have fluctuating between up and down tempo tracks, few have the stark contrast from song to song as Hazards. The result has been songs, and albums, sounding a little too similar. This is not a horrible thing, few things this band has done could even be considered bad, but deciphering between Castaways And Cutouts, Her Majesty and Picaresque can be difficult from time to time.

In this way Hazards firmly sets itself apart. Take the middle of the album, when the sweeping "Isn't It A Lovely Night" finishes and the listener is throw into the Tales 
From The Crypt-ess haunt that is the beginning of "The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid." Shara Worden's blasting vocals push the tempo of the song up in a ways scarcely seen by any singer this side of Jim James, building and building until... down we go again with "Interlude," only to go back up tempo with the disturbingly delicious "Rake Song." As the album continues to progress we're hit for what feels like the first time for The Decemberists with heavy guitars. Chris Funk absolutely kills it in "The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing," with fucking fantastical organ whaling in the background and an absolute power demanded by Worden yet again.

Through all of this Hazards manages to do what no other Decemberists album, and very few albums throughout time have done, the album holds the listener through every single track. Not once during the listening experience have I ever had the inkling to cut the album short in any way; which is saying something, because kids singing is creepy and they're all over "The Hazards Of Love 3 (Revenge!)."

Adding to the swing of tempo throughout the album are several repeated progressions and feels; such as the country western feel the lap steel brings in both "Isn't It A Lovely Night," and "The Hazards Of Love 4 (The Drowned)." In "Lovely Night" the band ties to other songs on the album while adding an Eatern European style, reminiscent of "The Chimbley Sweep" off of Her Majesty. Reminiscent, but distinctly different; a progression that hadn't been in The Decemberists work until The Crane Wife, and has been pushed forward in Hazards.

Though large stride have indeed been made in Hazards, the sounds shouldn't be unrecognizable to those familiar with the band. Fans of The Crane Wife will undoubtedly feel the similarities between "Sons and Daughters" and "The Hazards Of Love 2 (Wager All)". Meloy even manages to tie the two albums together re-invoking the narrator of "The Crane Wife 1 and 2" during "The Rake's Song," referencing bells ringing for their wedding. Is The Hazards of Love then appropriately titled for the demise of the happy couple of The Crane Wife? I don't know, just something to ponder. 

Aside from finally proving to Stephen Colbert that lead-guitarist Chris Funk can shred with the best of them, Hazards successfully shows off every one of the bands capabilities and, in some tracks, adds to them. The addition of Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark and especially My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden as the Queen compliment frontman Colin Meloy in absolutely fantastical ways. While Meloy's voice is one of the prodigious elements that has drawn fans to this band, the harmonizing in tracks like "Annan Water" not only serve as a contrast to the norm, but pushes the band in new directions, continuing their evolution instead of growing stagnant.

And wouldn't any true fan of music want a band to progress? Take the aforementioned Flaming Lips, would you really want their career to be solely the punk/garage rock they produced in the 80s? Where the hell would Radiohead be if they kept coming out with Pablo Honey again and again? Folks that want the same ol goodness they've come to know and love should just listen to Jack Johnson, and eat at their local iHop.
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August 3, 2009
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1 comments:

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Andrew delete September 15, 2009 at 4:58 PM

Yes, all artists must grow and experiment if they want to remain relevant. Stasis=death of creativity, though often not of popularity and sales. (Just ask U2 or the Red Hot Chili Peppers or, sure, Jack Johnson.) But must we celebrate every step forward an artist takes, even the missteps? What if they abandon all their strengths and devote themselves to endeavors they are ill-equipped to perform?

I've always thought Meloy was a better short-story writer than a novelist, so to speak. His way with perspective, his keen sense of place and detail-- these talents tend to get obliterated by the bombast of his bigger, longer narratives. To wit: "The Crane Wife" is a gorgeous song suite, but it lacks that very precise rendering of time, place, dialect and character that color Meloy's best songs. (Think of such perfectly constructed 'short stories' as "On the Bus Mall" or "The Bachelor and the Bride.")

You note the interchangable sound of The Decemberists' first three records. Yet I can hear a subtle progression in both the music and lyrics, with Meloy's songwriting voice getting stronger and more distinct as his band builds their chops. With PICARESQUE, there are really only two "nautical"-themed narratives (one a grand epic, but still). There are also cold war espionage romances, fallen-athlete laments, jaunty protest-pop tunes, and that aforementioned little heartbreaker about gigolo runaways. The music shifts, sways, stretches and expands with the themes/lyrics.

HAZARDS, on the other hand, hits the same handful of notes over and over again. It strikes me as both lyrically and musically redundant, what with all these reprises and repeated refrains. The story is Renaissance Fair goofy. The music baldly (and badly) strives for 70s prog-rock granduer, but these guys and gals have always been better with Neutral Milk Hotel intimacy than Pink Floyd extravagance.

Plus, the whole thing just strikes me as calculated and inorganic, like Meloy basically said "I want our next album to sound like THIS." The last time a beloved pet band of mine decided to deliberately make a "kind of record" the results were falsetto warbles about peanut butter pudding surprises. That's right, I'm evoking EVIL URGES, which also gets defended on the grounds of "they're experimenting with their sound and GROWING."

Not all growth spurts are flattering and some experiments just fail. Maybe The Decemberists *and* MMJ are caught in those awkward teenage years-- all pimples and cracked voices and lanky physiques. You mentioned The Flaming Lips. Keep in mind, one album before they grew and matured into the majesty of THE SOFT BULLETIN, we all had to endure the unlistenable ZAIREEKA.

Wrong as you clearly are, I enjoyed reading. Keep up the good work, mix-master Pretentious.

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