The Decemberists Break the Mold on New Concept Album

Next to the new Decemberists album The Hazards Of Love, The Crane Wife seems meek. Colin Meloy and company have crafted a set of music and a story of epic preportions, staying true to their "old soul" vibe but blasting far beyond the trappings of an indie-folk band. Every song is very much part of the whole, forcing the album to be listened to continuously from beginning to end. But that is all part of the beauty and rarity of this kind of album in this day and age.

The Hazards Of Love is told in the fine tradition of a classic love and revenge story. Margaret, voiced by Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond, falls in love with a shape-shifting forest creature, voiced by Meloy. Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond rounds out the cast as a jealous forest queen.

"Prelude" is what it suggests and sounds like an orchestra warming up. Keyboardist Jenny Conlee takes center stage here with some haunting organ and even some synth that would do Rush proud.

The title track, as with The Crane Wife, is broken up into four parts. Each is similar in basic structure and the whole thing provides an anchor for the album. Subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle changes arise as the mood of the album changes. In part one, the song feels very vast and is acoustic-based. Prominent stand-up bass fills in the crevices between the guitar and there's even a Moroccan-sounding flurry near the end.

"A Bower Scene" is definitely a rock song with it's chugging electric riffs over ringing keyboard. It almost feels like '70s prog-rock.

"Won't Want For Love" is a slow burner with somewhat of a blues boogie. It's here that Stark's Margaret makes her first appearance.

The second part of "The Hazards Of Love" is back to acoustic but has the sparse feel of a street performance, complete with bongos, reminiscent of The Smashing Pumpkins' "Blue." But the song does build in intensity and instrumentation.

"Isn't It A Lovely Night" is an accordian-driven classic love song. Stark's fragile, warbling vocals, almost like those of Joanna Newsom, mesh with Meloy's in a duet worthy of stage musicals. The steel guitar towards the end changes the mood a bit into a country waltz. This isn't exactly effective and probably should have been left out.

Melancholy harpsichord characterizes the beginning of "The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid." But the rest is full electric Heart/Led Zeppelin-style blues-rock. Worden makes her debut as the Queen and this style of music perfectly fits her deeper, soulful vocals.

"The Rake's Song" is the only one on the album that could concievably stand on it's own. The band probably needed a single to promote the album after all. But this doesn't detract from the quality. Driven by a simple but memorable acoustic riff with compressed electric fuzz beneath and bombastic drumming from John Moen, the song tells the creepy tale of a young widower killing his children.

"The Abduction of Margaret" has a chugging electric riff much like "A Bower Scene" but with lots of precise drumming and symbals for the percussion. In this the song has some Police flavor.

If there's one song on the album that proves The Decemberists can rock hard with the best of them it's "The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing." Worden's vocals are highlighted once again and the mountain-sized guitar riffs are almost doom metal-worthy.

"Annan Water" changes the tone a bit and is energetic and acoustic and synth based. Not that the song is bad but it's one of the least memorable.

Giving off a desperate vibe, "Margaret In Captivity" has Stark's vocals sounding not unlike Joni Mitchell. Electric riffing returns in the last half of the song but this time with a flute duet.

The third part of "The Hazards Of Love" is quite changed from it's predecessors. It's an eerie children's song with definite "Another Brick In The Wall" touches. Harpsichord and harmony singing, from the children the Rake character killed, provide the bulk. Towards the end the song morphs into a circus waltz.

The fourth part of "The Hazards Of Love" end the albums on a lower key just as it began with an alt. country-tinged ballad complete with steel guitar. The story has a satisfyingly well-rounded climax to go with the well-rounded beginning and middle.

The Decemberists have given us one of the greatest if not the greatest concept albums since probably The Smashing Pumpkins' Machina/The Machines Of God. The story is worthy of high literature and the band went above and beyond what the general listening public has thought of them as. The Hazards Of Love is just begging to be played live all the way through or to be turned into a musical. It's definitely an early contender for album of the year.

Les Claypool Strips Down the Sound for his Second Solo Album

Despite the similarity in the phrasing of the titles, Bass maestro and former Primus frontman Les Claypool's Of Fungi and Foe is an entirely different animal from his last release, Of Whales and Woe. Gone are the jam band touches like the sitar and saxophone, even the guitar. What's left is a primal, percussive framework driven by Claypool's innovative bass playing and unique lyrical style, this time inspired by film (Pig Hunt) and video game (Mushroom Men) projects he's been participating in.

The first two tracks, "Mushroom Men" and "Amanitas" are really two parts of a whole, both driven by a simple but effective march beat by some shotgun drumming. This expertly mirrors the B-movie concept of giant mutant mushroom men terrorizing puny human beings. Claypool's vocals here are mixed somewhere in the middle and are alternately whispery and gutteral. This, combined with eerie fingernails-on-chalkboard flurries every now and then perfectly create the mood the lyrics reflect.

"Red State Girl" may be the most overtly hilarious song on the album. Lyrically, it is abound with redneck stereotypes like dirty fingernails, too much eye make-up, big, blond hair and a hero worship of Sarah Palin. Interestingly enough, the song is moved along with a trance-like beat provided by the tabla, a traditional Indian drum.

"Booneville Stomp" is like the war march of mighty trolls, courtesy of aggressive, tribal drumming. But the song begins and ends with an eerie fade courtesy of the whamola, a child of the washtub bass that Claypool has popularized. The metal pipe provides a unique echo effect to the clap of the string being hit by a drum stick.

Like a demented children's song with Claypool's intentionally overblown vaudevillian vocals, "What Would Sir George Martin Do" features bouncy marimba and what sounds like a multi-armed insect hitting the drums very precisely. There's a slide whistle solo from Claypool's 12-year-old son Cage. The lyrics spin a tale about the successes and mishaps of an overseas vacation. Some of the details are so specific it wouldn't be surprising if all of this actually happened.

Because of the addition of Eugene Hutz, the wild frontman from Gogol Bordello, "Bite Out Of Life" has energetic "gypsy sauce," as Claypool writes in the liner notes. The song has the most traditional set-up on the album, with Claypool's bass playing somewhat straightforward but still in the forefront. The drums seem to have been recorded as naked as possible, this natural vibe adding to the gypsy stomp. Hutz' frenetic acoustic strumming is the only guitar on the album. His vocals are equally spastic and nearly unintelligable but the raw passion is palpable.

"Kazoo" is low-key avant-jazz on muscle relaxers. Think Tom Waits drinking codeine cough syrup while seeping down a sewer. At first the lyrics seem to be talking about a woman but half-way through the song it's realized the main character is a dog.

Despite a couple redundancies, Of Fungi and Foe is another triumph for the prolific Les Claypool. With every album he looks towards a future of his own design and that's what makes him an important force against the homogenization of popular music.