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The Hazards of Love
Wednesday, July 22 2009
I've been listening to the Decemberists' new CD The Hazards of Love after downloading it from Amazon (I still don't use iTunes!). As albums go, The Hazards of Love is about as flawed as a listenable CD can be. It's very repetitive, with constant reprises of earlier themes. It's also a bit campy at times, particularly when it makes non-ironic use of the guitar intro to Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive." But at times it rocks in a way the Decemberists never have, reminding me a little of Jethro Tull, complete with that nerdy Renaissance Fair vibe. The creepy biological weirdnesses seemingly rooted in Neutral Milk Hotel are still there, but they are made to rock. Here again we have bellies full of misbegotten foetuses, but now there's a tender female vocal perspective that lives just to build itself into a mind-blowing banshee wail, sustaining for seconds at a time that thing rock and roll was conceived to achieve. It's a welcome relief from the nasally Decemberist vocals of Colin Meloy, which are okay when limited to wistful broodings about the likes of Leslie Anne Levine, but can become tiresome in their more ecstactic forms.
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