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The Grand
Delusion
The Decemberists go for
baroque with showy foray
into musical theater
By Josh Modell

[rating]

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Trash Classic

Colin Meloy’s grandiose ambitions have, along with his band’s popularity, grown gradually more grandiose over the years. smarty-pants fans swooned for his use of old-timey language on 2002’s Castaways and Cutouts, embraced the nautical theme of the following year’s Her Majesty, and gleefully joined (or, more likely, rejoined) the drama club on indie farewell Picaresque. Jumping to a major label further fueled Meloy’s desire for outsize ideas: 2006’s

The Crane Wife both summarized his past work and then added a multipart song cycle based on a Japanese folk tale for good measure.

so why did often reticent indie-rock fans indulge this Portland, oregon orchestral pop group’s move toward proggish pomposity, a path normally reserved for bands associated with cheesy ’70s excess

(styx, yes, reo speedwagon)? Because

Meloy can write the hell out of a melody, and he’s got a flair for making what might

seem heady and ridiculous on paper into something that sounds relatable and touching. (Maybe you can’t directly empathize with, say, a “chimbley sweep,” but you can at least appreciate his plight in song.)

yet with The Hazards of Love, Meloy may have high-kicked too far. Heavy on atmosphere and narrative, the hour-long, 17-part opus sets itself up as a piece of musical theater but forgets too frequently that great musicals need to deliver sticky choruses in addition to plot-advancing details.

The latter he’s got covered: Hazards tells the story of a woman, Margaret, whose travails include being sexually assaulted by a shape-shifter, abduction at the hands of a villain known as “the rake,” and eventually (if concept albums require spoiler alerts, consider this fair warning) joyous death in the arms of her true love. There’s also child murder, a jealous queen, and enough anachronism to power an autogyro or gramophone for weeks.

still, these flamboyant attempts are

THE DECEMBERISTS The Hazards of Love

•••••••••• MYSPACE AMAZON

ILLUSTRATION BY JUSTIN LEE WILLIAMS

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