The Crane Wife Watercooler
Decemberists' The Crane Wife (out 10/3 on that hot new indie Capitol) gets its name from a Japanese folk tale for children. The press release says: "The instruments chart a far-flung course through multiple musical genres into a full-blown masterpiece."
No joke. The Crane Wife is a masterpiece.
The epic 12-minute "The Island" kicks off with two-minute Pink Floyd space jam, then alternates between organ freakout and finger-picked madrigal. So prog, so awesome and unexpected. "Perfect Crime #2" rips the riff from Steely Dan's "Do It Again," but, you know, of course it's about rape and murder. And "Summersong" is not summery so much as a nautical tale of doomed love punctuated by an accordian hook and Colin's sing-song inflections. Stereogum fave Laura Veirs guests on "Yankee Bayonet," a gorgeous duet suited to two poets: "Oh my love though our bodies may be parted / Though our skin may not touch skin / Look for me with the sun bright sparrow / I will come on the breath of the wind," they croon in unison. Elsewhere, the Mozisms and morbidity one expects from Mr. Meloy abound. Overall, less poppy than Picaresque (no obvious "Sixteen Military Wives" single), but Crane Wife is as classic if not moreso.
We know how Colin feels about P2P leaks, so no MP3s for you! But thirty second samples are streaming at number of online retailers. Windows Media links:
1. The Crane Wife 3
2. The Island, Come and See, The Landlord's Daughter, You'll Not Feel the Drowning
3. Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
4. O Valencia!
5. The Perfect Crime #2
6. When the War Came
7. Shankhill Butchers
8. Summersong
9. The Crane Wife 1 & 2
10. Sons & Daughters
Let's say, hypothetically, you heard the album. Is not it so fucking awesome?
Posted at 2:02 PM
Tags: Laura Veirs | The Decemberists
Yeah, I love it, I think it's better than Picaresque and maybe as good as the first two albums. More of a muscular sound and it works well for them.
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it's their best album.
and partly because they've ditched a lot of their annoying habits.
i've been listening nonstop.
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the new album is too jammy and meanders around good ideas. the latter part of the album is solid though.
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so i heard it, but not leaked, through the radio station i'm at, so i feel not as guilty...anyway there's some really good stuff. I don't know if i'm really diggin the longer songs. They don't have that same "epic" feeling that the tain had. However there are plenty of songs on the album that are sounding great, perfect crime, valencia, crane wife 3...can't wait to get my hands on the vinyl version of this as well as buying the cd once it ocmes out. Love the Decemberists, hope the album does well!
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the new album is too jammy and meanders around good ideas. the latter part of the album is solid though.
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Hey, this is tagged under "Laura Veirs"...?
By the way, "Do It Again" is about death, gambling and depression. Maybe not rape and murder, but you make it seem like the Dan are sunshine and roses by comparison.
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I'm really impressed by this too, to the point where I'm confronting the reality that I may actually be a Decemberists fan.
I reckon that "O Valencia" is actually the most obvious single in their catalog to date, and that "The Perfect Crime" and "Yankee Bayonet" wouldn't be bad follow-ups.
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I'm really impressed by this too, to the point where I'm confronting the reality that I may actually be a Decemberists fan.
I reckon that "O Valencia" is actually the most obvious single in their catalog to date, and that "The Perfect Crime" and "Yankee Bayonet" wouldn't be bad follow-ups.
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Colin and Laura Viers sound so good on "Yankee Bayonet". I'm sold.
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Laura duets on one of the songs.
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Are folks here commenting on hearing the album in full or just the sound clips here? Where can we cough cough barrow the album until 10/03?
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I definitely like the album, though I can't say it's my favorite of theirs. It's definitely a grower, though. It's very, very different than what I would have expected for a major label debut. Bless 'em for putting two 10 minute+ songs on there. In a way, this is kinda a full-length Tain, in terms of its central theme and use of different sounds/ideas than usual.
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What a truly magnificent record. I can not wait for this one to hit stores.
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Actually, having listened to it a few times I think the last two songs reveal themselves to be the best on the album.. Crane Wife Parts 1-2 is just such a euphoric trip and Sons & Daughters has this great trad marching song feel to it, makes me want to sing along more than anything I've heard lately.
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Are we all listening to the same album? Beyond the one song that runs off with every bad idea prog-rock ever had, you've got a bunch of half-baked, obvious melodies. Seriously, they step outside of the formula for one song... the rest is just "Decemberists-By-Numbers".
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yeah, this album DEFINITELY takes some listening to/multiple plays to come to really appreciate.
the last 2 tracks, crane wife 1 & 2 and sons & daughters are beautifully written...i'm so glad they leaked too. when it was just the 8 songs out i really didn't feel it at ALL, but with the last two in the mix it really rounds out the record. oh, and the artwork doesn't hurt either (;
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the perfect crime 2 is a pretty good song and different.
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I wouldn't say The Perfect Crime or When The War Came are Decemberists-by-numbers, they definately make an effort to branch out their musical style on those... you could also argue that Summersong is more trad than anything else they've attempted. As for the rest, sure it's a style you've heard before, but I think they do it well on this one. Picaresque tried very hard to be epic and sounded overcooked, whereas this one feels looser and less strained but ends up achieving an epic feel.
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sounds great so far!
try listening to "The Crane Wife" selections in order (1-3), it actually sounds better this way.
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I found it to be quite boring and not very memorable upon the first and second listen. I will try again.
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i feel like i heard this playing in urban outfitters today. it sounded like colin's voice, it was very 'prog-y' and it didn't sound very familar to me (and ive listened to most of their stuff).
or maybe it's all in my head....
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hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=297VAZXE
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Has anyone seen the deleted scene from "A Mighty Wind" where Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara sing "Killington Hill," a song so relentlessly morbid despite its jaunty tune? That's what the Decemberists always remind me of - and I sort of love them for that.
If anyone can find those lyrics, reprint them please!
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Has anyone seen the deleted scene from "A Mighty Wind" where Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara sing "Killington Hill," a song so relentlessly morbid despite its jaunty tune? That's what the Decemberists always remind me of - and I sort of love them for that.
If anyone can find those lyrics, reprint them please!
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i've heard it. i like it. i'm not blown away. the lyrics are not nearly as good as in prior albums, but everything else is doing it for me. i felt that something is missing and i don't know what, and i'm as big a fan as they come.
but i realized that not only were my expectations unreasonable, but this is simply the next decemberists album of many to come - considering it is a fairly straightforward conceptual piece, it was wonderfully wrought.
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i agree with all of you, you're right, it's true!!
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what did that last guy just say?
the album is a beatiful blend of Fine.
it is fluent and conclusive.
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I definetly think that not only has the music improved, but the overall production itself has improved greatly! This is definetly up there with Picaresque, and definetly better than their first two albums.
I was suprised at how much this album rocks, from beginning to end it's all amazing material and it shows that bands today aren't all that bad.
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This is very disapointing. Definetly thier weakest work yet. It falls far away from the things that made me like them, and they have definetly just dropped out of my favorite bands list.
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Maybe it's a grower, but on first listen I have to say I'm disappointed. Where are the tunes?
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Better than Picaresque. I cannot stop listening to it. Although, I would not call it their best . . . that is a debate for another day.
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I'm totally in love with the new album... The title tracks are gorgeous and I like the semi-new sound.
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Definitely their worst to date. I've listened to it in it's entirety at least 5 times and can find only fleeting glimpses of the melodicism and lyrical depth that I've come to expect. The opener is about as good as it gets in my opinion (Crane Wife 3) before the the proggy meanderings and middling re-hash ditties take over and leave me decidedly underwhelmed.
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