Colin Meloy and his brave
Decemberists made the unlikely jump to a major label after 2005's excellent
Picaresque, a move that surprised both longtime fans and detractors of the band. While it is difficult to imagine the suits at Capitol seeing dollar signs in the eyes of an accordion- and bouzouki-wielding, British folk-inspired collective from Portland, OR, that dresses in period Civil War outfits and has been known to cover
Morrissey, it's hard to argue with what
the Decemberists have wrought from their bounty.
The Crane Wife is loosely based on a Japanese folk tale that concerns a crane, an arrow, a beautiful woman, and a whole lot of clandestine weaving. The record's spirited opener and namesake picks off almost exactly where
Picaresque left off, building slowly off a simple folk melody before exploding into some serious
Who power chords. This is the first indication that the band itself was ready to take the loosely ornate, reverb-heavy
Decemberists sound to a new sonic level, or rather that producers
Tucker Martine and
Chris Walla were. On first listen, the tight, dry, and compressed production style sounds more like
Queens of the Stone Age than
Fairport Convention, but as
The Crane Wife develops over its 60-plus minutes, a bigger picture appears.
Meloy, who along with
Destroyer's
Dan Bejar has mastered the art of the North American English accent, has given himself over to early-'70s progressive rock with gleeful abandon, and while many of the tracks pale in comparison to those on
Picaresque, the ones that succeed do so in the grandest of fashions. Fans of the group's Tain EP will find themselves drawn to "Island: Come and See/The Landlord's Daughter/You'll Not Feel the Drowning" and "The Crane Wife, Pts. 1 & 2," both of which are well over ten minutes long and feature some truly inspired moments that echo everyone from
the Waterboys and
R.E.M. to
Deep Purple and
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, while those who embrace the band's poppier side will flock around the winsome "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)," which relies heavily on the breathy delivery of Seattle singer/songwriter and part-time
Decemberist Laura Veirs. Some cuts, like the English murder ballad "Shankill Butchers" and "Summersong" (the latter eerily reminiscent of
Edie Brickell's "What I Am"), sound like outtakes from previous records, but by the time the listener arrives at the
Donovan-esque (in a good way) closer, "Sons & Daughters," the less tasty bits of
The Crane Wife seem a wee bit sweeter. ~ James Christopher Monger