The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
The Decemberists, a five-piece from Portland, Oregon, make their major-label debut with their forth full-length album 'The Crane Wife'. Since their debut EP '5 Songs' in 2001, The Decemberists have made a career out of crafting intelligent, quirky and deeply involved stories, often with a historical or fantastical subject matter. Uplifting where necessary, saddening where necessary, and haunting where necessary, The Decemberists are one of the most versatile bands out there, combining guitars, drums, strings, wind, and strong male and haunting female voices in perfect measure. Singer-songwriter Colin Meloy has easily enough creativity and imagination to drive five bands – when he pours it all into The Decemberists, the results are spectacular.
The Decemberists' forth studio album is in part a concept album based on a Japanese folk tale 'The Crane Wife', in which a poor man finds an injured crane outside his house and nurses it back to health. Subsequently, a woman appears at his door, whom he falls in love with and marries. The woman turns out to be an incredibly skilled weaver and agrees to make a living for them by weaving clothes out of silk, so long as the poor husband does not watch while she does it. Tragically, however, the husband becomes greedy and, regardless of his wife's well-being, over-works her. One day, overcome by curiosity, the man peeks into the weaving room, and is shocked to see the crane sitting at the loom, weaving her own feathers into clothes. The man then realises that the woman he married was in fact the crane that he saved, but alas it is too late – the crane flies away, never to return. Those familiar with The Decemberists' storytelling ability will salivate at the prospect of a re-telling of this folk tale.
The album opens with 'The Crane Wife 3', which tells the latter part of the above story – the rest of the story is told on track 9, 'The Crane Wife 1 & 2'. There's not a bad song on 'The Crane Wife', but the tracks that jump out for me are the radio-hit potential 'O Valencia!', the mournful 'Shankill Butchers' and album closer 'Sons and Daughters'. 'Yankee Bayonet', a duet between a young girl (guest vocalist Laura Veirs) and an American soldier (Colin Meloy), is another brilliantly individual song.
When a band that has released so many good records on small labels as The Decemberists have, there is always a degree of surprise and concern when they sign to a major – will the industry fat cats tame and mellow their sound? Thankfully, this has not happened with The Decemberists. 'The Crane Wife' is as quirky, folky and grand as ever – with mammoth ballads ('The Island'), melancholy folk myths ('The Crane Wife Parts 1, 2 & 3') and bouncy indie-pop ('Sons and Daughters', 'O Valencia!'). 'The Crane Wife' is more than just a music CD – it's a novel, and it's well worth reading.