Why didn’t anybody tell me?!
Anybody had a good listen? Sounds alright from Amazon’s previews. Not sure about the forest-love nonsense, I prefer their Victorianesque shtick.
It’s the best album I’ve heard in a long, long time. I can’t stop listening to it, and love it more every time. It’s both epic and intimate, traveling widely from folk ballads to hard rocking pounders, but works beautifully as a coherent whole. The vocals and melodies are gorgeous, the music is deeply affecting. I can’t imagine anything topping it for my album of the year. Just stunning.
Personally I think Crane Wife is still my favorite Decemberists album, but Hazards of Love is probably second , (although I only have listened to it a couple times so it might grow on me more). If you like The Decemberists, it is definitely worth a buy and as Monkey says travels nicely between ballads and rock. It is definitely an album that you really should listen start to finish (which is actually nice considering all the singles driven albums now a days).
Capital! I’ll pick it up ASAP.
I’m a huge Decemberists fan (they’re #6 on my last.fm), but I still haven’t gotten around to picking up their new album. I just know that Entertainment Weekly gave it a D+. Crane Wife took a LONG time to grow on me…the first time I heard it, I wanted to delete it. I finally started enjoying it much more when I changed the track order so that The Island would be the opener and that all 3 Crane Wife tracks were in chronological order towards the end.
I’ll be back to report on my first impressions of Hazards of Love, probably tonight.
I noticed that EW review as well, which gave me pause, but plenty of other critics disagreed.
I’ve listened to it once, and my initial impression is that it seems like something they’ve been building up to for awhile now – an actual rock opera, a cohesive story (even moreson than The Crane Wife) with characters with different voices and a plotline that goes through the entire song cycle, as well as motifs that are introduced and repeated. I will say that it errs a bit on the pretentious side, but it is most definitely not boring, which I think is a worse sin in rock music.
Also, while the Decemberists have never really been a singles band, one of their songs here “The Wanting Comes in Waves” is, IMO, the best single song they’ve written to date. When you first come across it in the song cycle it’s a stunner, and then when it repeats itself, near the end, at a crucial moment in the plotline, it’s emotionally cathartic.
Not all the songs are that good, and I’m not as ecstatic about it as Monkey Chews, but if you already know you like the Decemberists, I feel quite comfortable in saying it will be worth your $10.
Well, after one continuous listen (the first half while soaking in a bubble bath)…
The prelude track seemed totally unnecessary and not really in the spirit of this band, and the first Hazards of Love track was pretty boring, which worried me that the next 3 wouldn’t be much better. A Bower Scene really caught my attention and turned my expectations around. Won’t Want For Love was also a pretty track. I didn’t even realize until halfway into it that there was another Hazards of Love song…maybe it is growing on me? The Queen’s Approach was short and sweet, and Isn’t It A Lovely Evening continues the trend of beautiful songs on this album - definitely a new approach! Oooh, harpsichord, love it! Wow, The Wanting Comes in Waves is a haunting track. Man, I can’t wait to see that one live. I find it funny how they named such an interluding-sound track An Interlude. I started dancing along to The Rake’s Song. Really loved the tension-building intro to The Abduction of Margaret. I didn’t even realize that Queen’s Rebuke was a separate track. Annan Water sounded like the most traditional Decemberists song on this album. Yeegads, Colin sounds totally out of tune on Margaret in Captivity. Hazards 3 is by far the best of them. The Waves reprise was kind of bizarre, and seemed out of place. Still love the song though! And as usual (with the exception of their first album), the last track is the worst on the album.
I need to read over the lyrics, cuz I wasn’t really following the storyline, if there was one. One thing about this album though is it seems like it really DOES need to be listened to in its entirety. There weren’t any songs that seemed like they could stand on their own.
Her Majesty & Picaresque are still in a totally different world though. Man, this band has talent.
“The Rake’s Song” works pretty well as a single–I’ve been playing it on my show for quite a while now.
I love the album. Sure, it’s silly and over the top in a lot of ways, but I think it’s just the Decemberists being the Decemberists. Anything else and they’d be holding back.
One of the Sound Opinions guys nailed the album’s forebear–heavy metal guitars woven together with classic British folk? A song cycle of deeply literary lyrics about goings-on in a mystical forest? They’ve made the best Jethro Tull album in years.
FWIW, I think the last track is at least one of the two best on the album.
He doesn’t have the best grasp on intonation at the best of times, but I think it’s mostly deliberate here, to make the Rake sound more evil. And some of what you’re hearing might just be that the melody uses some weird intervals. When I first heard that track, I was expecting it to be similar to “The Hazards of Love 1” because the chord progression is similar, and so it was jarring when the melody started on an E rather than a D (and then got weirder from there). I assume that’s the effect they were going for.
I’ve had this album in my car for almost two weeks. Depending on traffic, I can generally hear the whole album every day. I gotta say it’s easily in my top five albums of all time. Once I figured out the story the whole thing just clicked. I can see the whole thing in my head when I listen. I really want someone to make a play out of it (The Interlude is basically an intermission between Act 1 and Act 2). The whole CD is amazing, but my favorite songs, in order, are
Hazards of Love 4 (The last song)
Hazards of Love 3 (The children singing)
Wont want for Love
The Rakes Song.
Now I just need to find out if they’re coming near here on their next tour.
HAH.
I got really confused…They did another rock opera?
Then I saw the dates of the posts.
This is from like 2 albums ago (three if you count the Long Live the King as another album).