The time is right for Oregon folkies The Decemberists, though fans may find their new album a bit of a surprise with its Americana country-rock homecoming feel writes KEVIN COURTNEY
STICK AROUND long enough and you’re bound to come into fashion. The Decemberists have been together for 10 years, but 2011 could be a spring awakening for the Portland, Oregon five-piece.
The climate is right. With a folksy revival in full swing, now may be the time of the season for The Decemberists’ blend of dark folk ballads, stormy mariners’ tales and neo-prog song cycles. In fact, The Decemberists themselves may have played no small part in spurring the revival, reckons Colin Meloy, the band’s bookish, bespectacled leader and chief folklorist.
“I feel like every band in the last five years has to have at least eight members in it,” observes Meloy, “and one guy solely responsible for playing, like, the finger-cymbals, or whatever weird, esoteric instrument you can possibly draw into your band. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we were somewhat responsible for that, having done the same thing ourselves over the years. But I think it’s great.
“Classic folk songs are due for another revival. It’s exciting to see what people are doing with that tradition now, generations on in the wake of Shirley Collins, Ewan MacColl and people like that.”
The Decemberists aren't afraid to go down some of rock's less crowded byroads. Picaresque, their 2001 album, doffed a musical cap to Meloy's favourite English pop bands, from The Kinks to XTC; their major label debut, The Crane Wife(2006), sounds like something Jethro Tull might have released after Thick as a Brick. Their 2009 album, The Hazards of Lovedelved deeper into Meloy's obsession with English heritage folk, and pushed the boat out even further into the realm of 1970s rock riffola.
The King Is Dead, their latest release, may baffle a few fans, chiefly because it's probably their least baffling album. It's a collection of concise country-rock tunes whose influences lie closer to Meloy's home: Neil Young, The Byrds, The Replacements, REM. Just to underline the homecoming theme, the band has recruited Americana singer Gillian Welch to add her fine vocals to six of the tracks, and persuaded Peter Buck to play guitar on three songs.
The REM guitarist's style is easy to pick out; on the album's lead single, Down by the Water, Buck sounds like he's playing the exact riff from REM's The One I Love. Er, surely Meloy didn't pay Buck just to rehash an old REM riff?
“Well, for one thing, we didn’t pay him,” laughs Meloy. “He volunteered his time. And for another thing, there are many songs out there that feature a move from E minor to D. He was mindful not to take it too far and make it an homage to his own band. We kind of forced him to do it, though.”
The no-frills approach certainly hasn’t done The Decemberists’ sound any harm – the instruments are still skilfully woven and Meloy’s voice is as quirky as ever. When he’s accompanied by Gillian Welsh, the chemistry is reminiscent of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
To bring their sound back down to basics, the band set up studio in a barn on an 80-acre estate in Portland that is also home to the annual Pickathon indie roots festival. It proved an ideal – if not always comfortable – environment for Meloy to explore his own musical roots.
“It was fairly cold most of the time, and it rained and there was no heating in the barn and no plumbing, and you had to put on your wellies and tromp through the mud to get to the outhouse. It was a little ascetic, but it was good for us.”
One element they kept was the storytelling approach to songwriting. Rox in the Box, for instance, tells the tale of two "copper kings" who ran copper mines in Bute, Montana in the early 20th century. "They were both Irish, and they were hiring almost exclusively Irish labourers, and I think guys knew when they were coming over that there was work to be had in Bute if they could make it that far."
If the song sounds like The Raggle Taggle Gypsy, that's deliberate: Meloy is a big fan of Irish music and mythology.
“I was a Hibernophile from a very young age, even before I knew what that word was. Coming from Montana, there’s definitely some strong Irish blood in Montana in general. At the time that song is set, Bute had the largest per capita Irish population in the world outside of Ireland.”
Writing simple, three-to-four minute songs proved something of an effort for Meloy. Being the kind of guy who likes to take a kernel of an idea turn it into a towering, multi-tendrilled epic (an early EP, The Táin, tackled the Irish myth of the Táin Bó Cuailgne in one 18-minute track), he needed all his willpower to exercise restraint. Did he worry that The Decemberists were getting a bit too close to the prog-rock edge?
“We already went completely prog-rock! So it’s too late for that. And even though I’ve never been a huge prog-rock fan, I think the thing that was drawing me to writing that stuff has so much to do with my love for things which are immersive and all-encompassing and just epic and cinematic.”
The back story
THE DECEMBRIST REVOLT
The band takes its name from the 1825 Decemberist revolt in Russia, an early attempt to establish communism, which explains much of the vintage communist imagery used in their artwork.
THE HAZARDS OF LOVE ALBUM
The seeds of the album were sown when Meloy found a 1966 EP by English folkie Anne Briggs called
The Hazards of Love. There wasn't an actual song called
Hazards of Loveon the record, so he undertook to write one himself, which quickly grew into a full-blown folk-rock-prog-metal opera peopled with shape-shifters, forest queens and lascivious rakes.
THE CRANE WIFE
Inspired by a Japanese folk tale about a poor man who nurses an injured crane back to health. Later, a woman appears at his doorstep whom he marries. She weaves beautiful silk clothes which he sells at market, but she never lets him see her making the clothes. He can't help but have a peek, and of course discovers that wife and crane are one and the same.
THE SHANKILL BUTCHERS
From
The Crane Wife, this is a song about the notorious splinter group of the UVF, who randomly murdered Catholics in the mid-1970s.
THE MARINER'S REVENGE SONG
From the
Picaresquealbum, this perennial live favourite tells the rather long story of a young man who sets out to avenge his mother's death. His hunt takes him to sea in pursuit of a whaling captain, but just as he reaches the ship, a massive whale attacks, killing all except the young man and his quarry – who, by delicious irony, end up in the belly of the beast.
The King Is Dead
is out on Rough Trade Records. The Decemberists play Vicar St, Dublin on March 4th
