Thursday, June 18, 2009

ALBUM REVIEWS (2 of 4): "The Hazards of Love" by The Decemberists

I always think of The Decemberists as a performing group like no other. They're not really your typical rock band, and they're not quite your typical acting troupe, but they should rightly fit in a category somewhere between the two. Their most recent album seems to be their most theatrical effort to date. They have incredible story-telling abilities within their tunes. Generally their albums are collections of various fascinating stories, but "The Hazards of Love" is one united story with separate scenes, if you will, described by the individual songs. It's hard to pick out favorite tunes as the whole album has a unified theme and sound, but for some reason "The Rake's Song" was my stand-out favorite. The lyrics are quite disturbing, but the song rocks, and does it well. That's one thing that really surprised me about this album is that there's a LOT more electric guitar and ROCK in this album. The song "The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)" would probably be the most accessible song for most people. I enjoyed it a lot. I like this album as a whole. If you're just looking to take away three-minute snippets of great stuff, it's not really the album for you. But if you have time to take in the whole album, I really recommend it. It's very different indie rock music. As I said, The Decemberists belong in their own category of rock. I'd rate it as an 8.5/10, only marking it down a bit because it can't be broken up, and basically needs to be heard straight through.

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