The Giant Panther

I'm back, and only a little worse for wear. My journey was a soul-seeking adventure into the world of way too much work. The first thing on my plate, as I contemplated my return, was to talk about The Crane Wife. I think this is the greatest leap for The Decemberists to date. Their first non-indie release leads them, as you might have guessed, to a more polished effort. Genre-hopping from track to track, at times, even psychedelic/prog rock, this is an epic album. With two tracks clocking in at over 12 minutes, how can it not be? When I first heard the second cut, "The Island", I could swear my itunes had been possessed and had flipped itself over to some lost Yes album. I'm almost tempted to go track by track here and list the artistic influences that lie behind each of these songs. That's hardly just to de-construct what I consider to be The Decemberists' finest work. I have to do just one more, can you hear "No Quarter" in "When The War Came?

While previous works were primarily acoustic driven, The Crane Wife finds The Decemberists plugging in a bit more, and pulling a few new instruments off the wall. It's a delicate balance to up the ante on instrumentation without killing the songsmanship The Decemberists are famous for. Does Colin Meloy spend his days and nights buried in turn of the century novels? I've always admired song-writers that can hearken back to a time they didn't live through, and tie that in to their own modern day joys and troubles.

MP3: The Decemberists - Summersong
The Decemberists Website
Buy The Crane Wife