By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 9, 2011
The Decemberists’ latest album, Long Live The King, is a basically the B-side to their last album, The King Is Dead. This being said, it gives ardent Decemberists fans the verve they’ve been looking for. It is a spirit that was notably absent in their last album, which was met somewhat disappointingly. This album, although only six tracks long, manages to give fans a taste of the old spunk and bite of vintage Decemberists sound.
That being said, the first two tracks are not especially good examples of this. As most of the promotional material attached to this EP will tell you, the collection of songs on Long Live The King are songs or demos that didn’t make it onto The King Is Dead for one reason or another. In the case of “E. Watson” and “Forgone,” the first two tracks on the album, they were probably cut due to space constraints more than anything; spiced with a taste of country-style guitar, and lyrics relatively uncrowded with typical Decemberists imagery, they could both have fit quite comfortably among the tracks of The King Is Dead. That being said, when not surrounded by 10 other tracks done in the same style, I grew attached to them and the underlying country-ish ambience relatively quickly; whereas The King Is Dead took some serious listening to get used to.
It’s with the next song on the album that the listener is suddenly transported back to The Hazards of Love – intense electric guitar distortion cut through with a solid, highlighted drum track could be a sibling of “Won’t Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga),” which, frankly, is a relief to hear after what was a disappointingly normal pop/indie sound from The King Is Dead. It is with relief that we listen to “Burying Davy.” Here, at last, are the Decemberists we know and love. Back to singing about creepy Victorian funerals. How I have missed you. The sparse and formulaic verses allow the band to fool around with the interludes and variations on the melody – another element that was sadly lacking in The King Is Dead.
If Hazards of Love wasn’t your kick, the last two tracks on the album (“Row Jimmy” and “Sonnet”) lean more towards the simple lyrics-and-guitar style of Picaresque or Castaways and Cutouts. “Sonnet” especially feels like a homecoming to their earlier work when they get into the big brass band portion of the song – once again, the Decemberists reassert themselves as something other than your typical pop or indie band.
Despite the disheartened attitude that was typical of devoted Decemberists fans after the release of The King Is Dead (a title that many took to be prophetically fitting), Long Live The King, while only a short collection of B-sides, is a ray of hope. As a group, they are still capable of the style they grew popular for. Unfortunately, it’ll be a while before we see another studio album from the Decemberists – the group is ominously going on hiatus for an indeterminate amount of time, so Long Live the King, ironically, might very well be their swan song.
