These Hazards of Love

Okay, I am throwing my hat into the review of this album. But I want to say right up front, this is not an argument or a criticism  of other’s reviews. It is merely a different opinion on the album. Because I approach it from a different perspective with different biases.

First of all, this album is a change for even the story-telling Decemberists. As I am sure most of you have read, it is a concept album; the plot of which is deep and often hard to comprehend. A lot of the faults in the story telling come from Meloy’s odd choice of words in certain parts. The language is thick, even for the literary. Many people have mentioned that in order to understand the story they read the lyrics. Good idea. I personally just listened to it enough to get it down. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much. It is a challenge, especially in a culture that finds the simplistic to be the most common. The depth of the story is hurt by this complexity at times, but for the most part still comes through. It is a story of love, jealousy, kidnapping and death.

Several complaints of the album comes from its mixing of genres. Some people say it is prog rock and musical masturbation with no intent. Others say it is a bloody mess of heavy metal and British folk. I say, it’s a bit of all of that, done with a purpose. This is not the first time the Decemberists have turned on the distortion and worn the rock pants for an album. Some of the longer, more intricate stories on previous albums had a similar feel, the beginning of the epic “The Tain” for instance, feels like hard rock mixed with Colin Meloy’s haunting melodies. “The Crane Wife,” the Decemberists last album, had several songs moving in this direction. In this context, “the Harzards of Love” continues the trend and actually improves upon it, giving the songs meaning within the whole of the tale. Songs like “Queen’s Rebuke” are loud and angry, reflecting the mood of the Queen, and following the vocal patterns of the wonderful Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. Following that is the amazing “Annan’s Water,” a song in which the hero pleas with the river for safe passage to his love, told in classic Decemberists folk fashion, but keeping the pace of the songs before it. The riffs create a feeling, which is Meloy’s intent with the entire album. There are some unnecessary parts, a riff that repeats too many times, or a few misplaced uses of the instruments, but that is all done with intent from the author. It just fails to hit through with the general audience.

That is not to say that the album is a failure by any means though. The vocals throughout the entire 58+ minutes album never misses to pluck the heart string or convey an image. The production is tuned down from past Decemberists ventures, sometimes seeming shallow only to convey the idea behind the words and story. They did away with extra strings and horns that had been prevalent in past albums. The focus of the cd is to pay attention to the vocal movement, following the characters as the plot plays out. As far as a concept album goes, it has been some time since one seemed so wholly joined together to keep the original story and purpose of the album. If the album was to be classified as anything, I would call it a musical without a visual piece. It borrows evenly from a variety of genres, places them in a context and does it with as much success as I think that sort of expirement will get. But if you don’t like prog rock, heavy metal mixing with folk, or for that matter, the Decemberists in general, this album is not going to tickle your fancy, but will leave you with a frustrating, complicated mess of meaning and a disjointed feeling to the songs. I see both sides of this album, but the feeling and emotion that plays out through the piece as a whole more than makes up for the few lapses in style. Substance is key here, and Meloy nailed the substance.

~ by clydeisbryan on March 26, 2009.