The Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love

The Decemberists have their fifth album, "The Hazards Of Love," a splendid job in wich they use the conceptual album format again now to tell the story of Margaret and William, lovers whose romance is threatened by William's mother "The Queen". Assemble over small suites that revolve around a melodic line that is repeated with different nuances throughout the album, the 17 tracks are linked to form a "single piece" of about an hour in wich the quintet continues the path that began with his previous album, "The Crane Wife," delivering an elabotared album with a highly theatrical style in which no detail is left to chance, but maintaining the simple and warm sound that has characterized his music. If in "The Crane Wife" Jenny Conlee keyboards dived the band into 70´s progressive rock sound, in "The Love Of Hazards" Chris Funk guitar leads them to bordering hard rock limits with passages filled with powerful riffs and chords that are interspersed with sweet and bucolic moments generated by Colin Meloy acoustic strings. In the vocal part the band has invited Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Becky Stark (Lavender Diamond), who lends her sweet voice to "Margaret", and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) playing "The Queen" , who just need to participate in 3 songs for almost steal the album with her intense interpretations, in total harmony with Funk´s hard guitar, which sounds even more captivating than those achieved with his own band. With "The Hazards Of Love" The Decemberists deliver us a real gem (again) and, for those who still doubted it, show that since long time ago they ceased to be a pretentious little indie band to become a mature and brilliant band while Colin Meloy confirms that has formed, along with Win Butler (The Arcade Fire) and Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunsent Rubdown, etc.) somekind of holy trinity of indie. Amen. -CORANNIEIT-

The Decemberists, The Hazards Of Love
Capitol, 2009

Links:
Official Website
My Space Site

The Wanting Comes... + An Interlude (extract)


The Abduction Of Margaret... + The Queen´s Rebuke


The Hazzards Of Love 3 + The Wanting Comes (reprise)...