[rating=8.00]
“The Singer Addresses His Audience” begins the Decemberists’ seventh album with the narrator defending his band against claims of selling out. “We know you threw your arms around us in the hopes we wouldn’t change, but we had to change some,” sings front-man Colin Meloy. Though Meloy’s lyrics are rarely autobiographical, this can be seen as a tongue-in-cheek response to those who want the old Decemberists back.
Continuing the tone set with 2011’s The King is Dead, the songs here are more simplistic, more streamlined and accessible than the Decemberists of old. Gone are 18-minute grandiose anthems of Irish mythology (“The Tain”) and 9-minute epic Dickensian revenge tales (“The Mariner’s Revenge Song”). The songs are tighter and the lyrics are more universal, dealing with topics like love rather than, say, ghosts speaking from beyond the grave (“Leslie Anne Levine”). While it’s easy to focus on what is lacking, however, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World is a collection of some of the best indie folk songs released in the last few years.
Having spent a few years writing the Wildwood children’s fantasy novel series during the band’s hiatus, Meloy found himself wanting to write more serious, introspective songs for the Decemberists. The result is his most personal work to date. On the lead single, “Make You Better,” Meloy sings of a fading relationship that failed to live up to expectations. “We’re not so starry-eyed anymore like the perfect paramour you were in your letters.” The song “12/17/12” is a somber reflection on the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Though the songs may be more subtle and accessible both in structure and lyrical content, that doesn’t mean it’s dull. The Decemberists still deliver some of the catchiest melodies in folk, and on this release those melodies are layered thicker than usual. Jenny Conlee’s sparse keyboards add a sense of longing to the slowly drifting “Lake Song.” Chris Funk’s intricate guitar melodies on the rustic tracks “Till the Water’s All Long Gone” and “Carolina Low” make them album highlights. In the latter, violent imagery suggesting child abuse (“you got an ugly little mouth, boy”) combine with a stripped arrangement to create an uneasy atmosphere.
Despite the lack of prog rock and the lack of references to mythology or Shakespeare, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World holds its own with the rest of the Portland quintet’s impressive catalog. Whether this more accessible sound is here to stay, the temporary result of Meloy’s books, or a reaction to the band’s most progressive and ambitious project (2009’s rock opera The Hazards of Love), remains to be seen. What is clear is that the Decemberists are still at the top of their game and suffer from no shortage of infectious folk pop hooks.
