CD Review

“Picaresque”
The Decemberists
Kill Rock Stars Records
2005
www.decemberists.com

What if Herman Melville fronted Fairport Convention? Well, part of that answer is to be found in the works of The Decemberists, an eclectic five-piece band out of Portland, Oregon. Songwriter/singer Colin Meloy has a degree in creative writing and it shows in the majority of the 11 tracks on Picaresque, the band’s third long-playing album. (And not since I first started listening to Rush albums when I was 13 have I consulted a dictionary so many times while reading a lyric sheet...). Meloy’s songs are largely character-based (and tend to take place in centuries past); from the story of the feudal (and futile) love of “Eli, The Barrow Boy,” to the international (wo)man of mystery in “The Bagman’s Gambit” to the aging gay hustlers of “On the Bus Mall” to the album’s centerpiece, “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” which is set largely in the stomach of a whale, the songs are by turns funny and touching--often both. My favorite track (aside from “The Infanta,” the only rock song about an heiress to the16th-century Spanish throne) is “The Sporting Life,” a “stream of consciousness” musing of a teen athlete who is not exactly the star of the team. As the season draws to a close, he “had known no humiliation/In front my friends and close relations,” sings Meloy, although the work of “an errant heel” threatens to undo the victories of the season. Why does he play sports? Well, to fulfill all his father’s athletic aspirations, natch, although, “apparently now there’s some complications.” Still, our stalwart narrator will “prove to the crowd that I come out stronger/Though I think I might lie here a little longer.” Produced by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie (the phrase “Walla of sound” is often banded about in reviews), tracks from Picaresque are getting some play on alternate radio. I heard a couple on Radio Paradise, and I hope this turns out to be a hit, because it’s probably the most delightful album I’ve bought in a long time. (Granted, some couplets--like “Meet me on my vast veranda/My sweet untouched Miranda”--do come off a tad dorky, and Meloy’s voice isn’t for everyone, but still....) Musically, the band is all over the map and is kind of indescribable; “pirate folk music” is probably the best description I’ve come across. Be sure to check out their Web site for song samples. (And the CD booklet’s graphics--which illustrate the songs as if they were part of a really cheap community theater production--show what is lost when we all rely on MP3 downloads, which I refuse to do.) This is in the running (with the latest from eels) as my CD of the year. I don’t usually like going to shows, but this is one band I wish would come play around the Albany area.