As I was compiling the CMJ Top 10 Albums for Monday's Arts section, I came to a sad realization: I am pained and embarrassed to admit that I had actually listened to only one of the 10. I blame a Studio Art class and the previously documented iPod Crisis of 2006, the one that left me without any music, for my sudden ignorant lameness.
When assigned an album review, I saw the chance to rectify this situation and chose the Decemberists' fourth full-length album, "The Crane Wife." Just released this month, it has already risen to second place. I wanted to see if it deserved to be there.
"The Crane Wife" takes its title from a Japanese folk story. In it, a poor man finds and rescues a crane, which later returns in human form to become his one true love and wife. She even rescues him from poverty by sewing exquisite wares to sell, on the condition that he never watch her work. The man's greed becomes too much and he breaks this promise; predictably, his wife, in her original crane form, flies away forever. Bandleader Colin Meloy found this story and decided to write music based on it.
Admittedly, the back-story of "The Crane Wife" sounds like a potentially ridiculous concept album of the "Spinal Tap" variety, a risk of aural assault that could make even a diehard fan hesitate. So too could the possibility that this release, the Decemberists' first on Capitol Records, marks the moment in which the band "sells out."
Despite approaching these two venal music sins, "The Crane Wife" far surpassed my expectations and has quickly become one of my favorite albums of this year.
"The Crane Wife" succeeds because it uses its inspiration as just that -- a jumping-off point, not a constraint. The Decemberists have managed to raise the bar for the concept album, weaving an intelligent and elegantly subtle series of stories together with the common themes of love, betrayal and greed that the Japanese tale espouses.
Indeed, the beautiful instrumentation of most tracks belies the violence and tragedy that their lyrics describe.
The first track, "The Crane Wife 3," opens the album in media res, after the crane has left her husband. The melancholy never quite disappears thereafter, occasionally reaching Gothic proportions.
To give you a better sense of the Decemberists' sound, imagine this: A Victorian-era British string ensemble has pulled some "Tuck Everlasting" deal with the devil and lived through the 20th century, absorbing rock aesthetics while staying grounded in traditional folk and keeping most of its instruments. In actuality, the band released its first full-length in 2002 and hail from Portland, Ore.
But they have one of the more unique voices in music today (a rare and welcome occasion), and one that defies uncompromising classification. Somehow, the Decemberists manage to jump around genres and still maintain this whimsical sensibility. "The Crane Wife" surprises and engages the listener but doesn't have to resort to complete stylistic schizophrenia to do it.
Meloy is a talented songwriter and an even better storyteller. "The Crane Wife" is epic in scope and hyper-literary in execution, touching on the Biblical and the Shakespearian, spanning the historical and the contemporary, all the while keeping the emotional undertones intense and identifiable.
I doubt any listener has ever loved a Civil War soldier, the scenario of "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)," but its themes of love, longing and loss are timeless, and musically this duet, featuring Laura Veirs, is relatively classic pop.
Meloy's character-driven stories offer quite a different experience from those self-centered singer-songwriters whining out pages of their journals. The former is much more enjoyable and, despite the tragic situations of most tracks, escapist in its own way.
One track in particular stands out: "The Island" is an ambitious three-song cycle clocking in at just under thirteen minutes. It's successful progrock for the 21st century -- its story of abduction, rape and murder, and its ever-shifting musical style so engaging that even my own twitchy fingers, always ready to skip a track, didn't move for the whole song.
The track is replete with references to Pink Floyd, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes -- all of the greats. Despite heavy distortion and, yes, an organ solo, the Decemberists maintain their own unique sound. If visualizing a Doors song would be like an acid trip, "The Island" -- as with most of the Decemberists' work -- is more of a Ken Burns-esque sepia.
When an album highlight is almost a quarter of an hour, you know you're listening to something great. "The Crane Wife" is ambition realized without self-indulgence.
The Decemberists cut half of their original track list to create a taut album that remains infinitely listenable thanks to the intelligent stories it tells through lyric and instrument. The Decemberists have mastered the concept album, fitting it nicely within their already-impressive oeuvre and leaving listeners excited for their next move.
