02.
The Decemberists
The Hazards Of Love
Wow. There’s so much going on here I hardly know where to start. The Hazards Of Love is epic. Truly epic. It is certainly The Decemberists’ best album, and most years would have been a clear album of the year choice. If you have this and know all about it, forgive me for the following, but if not, I think I need to explain...
The Hazards Of Love is a rock-opera concept album of the most wonderfully pretentious kind. Lyrically, it follows a mystical love story between a shape-changing faun/man, and the woman who finds him in the forest. It is layered with Celtic language, pagan imagery and magical fantasy. Different characters are portrayed by different vocalists, and are usually accompanied either by a specific musical theme, or at least by a musical style (the character of ‘The Queen’, for example, is always accompanied by heavier music than the other characters when she appears). In terms of the music, it is an album that is never silent, from start to finish: the tracks blend into one long and perfectly crafted piece.
There are folk elements, classic rock flourishes, orchestral sections (including a children’s choir at one point – representing the ghosts of murdered children) and some nifty accordion playing. Overall, there is so much on offer here that one could become obsessed with this record: the imagery, the references to place names or people, its musical themes etc etc. I have partially immersed myself in it, but I don’t have the time or inclination to give it the attention that one easily could. And that’s probably the best thing about this album. You don’t need to: it is a single piece of music, but it is also a collection of really good songs. Unlike, say, Porcupine Tree’s The Incident, it’s very easy to just listen to a single track from The Hazards Of Love, ignore the lyrical and musical density of the album as a whole, and enjoy it on a much more basic level. These are great tunes in themselves. Take, ‘The Rake’s Song’ (which has a similar chord change to David Bowie’s Space Oddity), with its horrific lyrics (it’s about a man who, left widowed, decides to murder his children to return to his previous life of philandering). ‘The Rake’s Song’ is a superb stand-alone track, but this vile man is also a key character in the great play that is The Hazards Of Love. If you care enough to notice. This is an album that’s an achievement of magnificent scale, and one that will presumably annoy as many people as it enthrals. If you don’t own it, do.
The Hazards Of Love
Wow. There’s so much going on here I hardly know where to start. The Hazards Of Love is epic. Truly epic. It is certainly The Decemberists’ best album, and most years would have been a clear album of the year choice. If you have this and know all about it, forgive me for the following, but if not, I think I need to explain...
The Hazards Of Love is a rock-opera concept album of the most wonderfully pretentious kind. Lyrically, it follows a mystical love story between a shape-changing faun/man, and the woman who finds him in the forest. It is layered with Celtic language, pagan imagery and magical fantasy. Different characters are portrayed by different vocalists, and are usually accompanied either by a specific musical theme, or at least by a musical style (the character of ‘The Queen’, for example, is always accompanied by heavier music than the other characters when she appears). In terms of the music, it is an album that is never silent, from start to finish: the tracks blend into one long and perfectly crafted piece.
There are folk elements, classic rock flourishes, orchestral sections (including a children’s choir at one point – representing the ghosts of murdered children) and some nifty accordion playing. Overall, there is so much on offer here that one could become obsessed with this record: the imagery, the references to place names or people, its musical themes etc etc. I have partially immersed myself in it, but I don’t have the time or inclination to give it the attention that one easily could. And that’s probably the best thing about this album. You don’t need to: it is a single piece of music, but it is also a collection of really good songs. Unlike, say, Porcupine Tree’s The Incident, it’s very easy to just listen to a single track from The Hazards Of Love, ignore the lyrical and musical density of the album as a whole, and enjoy it on a much more basic level. These are great tunes in themselves. Take, ‘The Rake’s Song’ (which has a similar chord change to David Bowie’s Space Oddity), with its horrific lyrics (it’s about a man who, left widowed, decides to murder his children to return to his previous life of philandering). ‘The Rake’s Song’ is a superb stand-alone track, but this vile man is also a key character in the great play that is The Hazards Of Love. If you care enough to notice. This is an album that’s an achievement of magnificent scale, and one that will presumably annoy as many people as it enthrals. If you don’t own it, do.