Album Review – The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
The Decemberists
The Crane Wife
Capitol
Rating: 4.5/5
Okay. I’ll admit it. I don’t usually win music game. I generally listen to what people give me or what people tell me I should check out, and it’s usually much later than everyone else has found it, after they’ve moved on to the next thing. My best friend has been telling me for a good solid year “You have to check this band out, they’re like sailing-creepy-pirate-gypsy-SCA minstrels that sing stories instead of songs” and I kept telling her that if she wanted me to check a band out she’d have to stop pushing it on me and find a more attractive descriptor.
So, cue the end of summer and I’m in Best Buy with a birthday gift certificate, waiting for my husband to stop drooling on some video game so we can head off to lunch. I decide to peruse the music section, and I find several selections on sale by The Decemberists. Wait, was that the name of that gypsy-pirate-minstrel band my best friend has been raving about? I picked up The Crane Wife and popped it into the car’s CD player. By the time we hit the restaurant for lunch, we were hooked. Tracks like “The Island” soar and race and at the end creep silently (a song done in 3 separate parts, it tells 3 separate stories about the same place).
“The Perfect Crime” has an electric thrum and a plot that has you rooting for the theives while picturing the cover art for Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The song styles range widely from poppy and catchy (“O Valencia!”) to quiet and creepy (“Shankill Butchers”), to winsome accordian and string filled ballads (“Summersong”) to loud deep anthems (“When the War Came.”)
As is their trademark, most of the songs on The Crane Wife are melodic and melancholy, bordering on creepy, but with such beautifully crafted lyrics and amazing range, the quirk factor gets buried by the fact that these people are just amazing musicians. I’ve never heard of some of the instruments they use, for instance, the bouzouki (which is apparently a Balkan long necked string instrument similar to a mandolin) or the Moog (Which is apparently a generic term for a group of synthesizers), but that doesn’t stop me from really enjoying listening to them.
Besides, any album that can replace TOOL in my car CD player and still makes my husband turn his ear and say (instead of bitching about Maynard being vetoed) “You know, I just don’t think there’s enough good accordian music nowadays, and not enough pump organ, either,” is the win in my book. Ok, so I’m not in the first wave at the “The Decemberists are t3h rad” party. At least I showed up fashionably late. With albums like The Crane Wife I’ll keep coming back for more.
-Stephanie Oppelaar
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