The Decemberists, "Picaresque"

On their third full-length LP The Decemberists present eleven more tales of anguished love and precious woe; rendered visually, each track would be an 18^th-Century woodcut. A brief roll of the narrators nasally given voice by frontman Colin Meloy: a royal toady who heralds the elephant-borne arrival of a young regent in “The Infanta”; a Nabokovian man of elegance who warbles to his love in a My Fair Lady-like tale of social ascension; a mourner for “Eli, The Barrow Boy,” whose toilsome lot in life comes straight out of Dickens. Meloy’s linguistic brashness remains unmatched: few lyricists would risk rhyming “parapets” and “coronets”, let alone “baroness” and “largess.” (Well, maybe Elvis Costello.) Which isn’t to say that Picaresque doesn’t open up the throttle; it’s a more driving affair than their standout Her Majesty. Several songs swing for the fences: “The Bagman’s Gambit” plays like a parody of the generic “quiet-LOUD-quiet” rock formula as it details an affair set against the skulduggery of international espionage; “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” spins a salty nine-minute yarn in an accordion-driven 2/2 beat which builds to a frenzy of guitar and fiddle. But what keeps these songs grounded is their impeccable if unpredictable use of instrumention and melody. Witness the stately chorus of “The Engine Driver” (“And if you don’t love me, let me go”) or the horn-based pseudo-ska of “The Sporting Life.” Tuneful and accessible, yet given to melodic invention, these melodies constantly swerve into surprising territory that doesn’t confuse but rather enriches each narrative. Best of all, Meloy and Co. have only improved at matching the music to the meaning; what might have been delievered with a coy wink instead sounds affecting and real. Only “16 Military Wives” falters—the album’s blatant call for attention from the MTV demographic—but it’s the sole exception in an otherwise profound milieu of cannon fire, corduroy, and angels. Like the best fairy tales, Picaresque imparts feeling from the unlikeliest, strangest places.