Quick Before it Melts

Monday 23 March 2009

Won’t want for love

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly and efficiently the music world can dispense with its own creation.  one minute you’re on the top if the charts and the next you’ve been teleported to the discount bin faster than you can say “Hot 100″.  Since I pay so little attention to commercial radio, I’ve pretty much been immune to the whims of time in this way, but I’m not innocent of abandoning recently championed albums and artists when something new and slightly more exciting comes along.  Remember my enthusiasm for Kayne West in December?  It wasn’t too long after that post that I last listened to 80s & Heartbreak.  Ah December, how far and distant you seem now.

Speaking of December, but in no way directly related, is the new album, The Hazards of Love, by The Decemberists.  It’s title is an early warning to the fickle nature of falling for infatuations:  watch your emotional steps lest love bite you in the ass.  Or in this case, lest love lead you to being ravished by a shape-shifting animal.  Just where the intricate moral fairytale setting of The Hazards of Love sprang from is known only to the story’s creator, one Colin Meloy, but he and his band make it easy for the listener to get swept up in it’s massive scope and delicate beauty.  Warnings or not, you can’t help but fall for The Hazards of Love.  It may get labeled as a rock opera, but I think a more fitting title would be a modern pop folk saga.  Over the course of 17 movements (they aren’t really songs as one leads effortlessly into the other, building and moving the story forward) The Decemberists have crafted a multi-character story-album that goes beyond mere “concept album” status; this is literature set to song, this is poetry and melody married to story and music in a way that would make musical theatre composers jealous.

The Hazards of Love is without a doubt The Decemberists finest moment on record, and has all the makings of being one of the decade’s greatest albums.  Time, and of course love, will be its judge, jury and executioner.  Time will tell whether the fickle nature of love and adoration will carry such a high-minded album forward, or whether it’s impressive scope and story turn it into a time-sensitive novelty, filed and forgotten after a few listens.  If there’s any justice in the world, The Hazards of Love is going to be an album we’ll talk about for years to come, and listen to forever.  I almost don’t want to re-post “The Rake’s Song” here in isolation from the rest of the album, because I think that to truly appreciate The Hazards of Love you need to hear the whole thing from beginning to end.  So I hope you’ll set aside some time today to clicking on the link to the full stream, and/or buying the album yourself.

MP3: The Decemberists “The Rake’s Song”
Stream: The Decemberists The Hazards of Love
Facebook: The Decemberists
Myspace: The Decemberists
Buy: The Decemberists The Hazards of Love

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by J. Di Gioia | Comments Off

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under MP3, Stream. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.