Fun Stuff > BAND

New Decemberists

<< < (11/17) > >>

valley_parade:
Oh man, good freaking album. I am pretty sure my favorite track is "Won't Want for Love". Or "The Abduction of Margaret".

iamiam:
So today I finally got the chance to take a couple hours to sit outside in the sunshine with no distractions and just listen to this album all the way through a couple times.  I am still really confused about the story.  As far as I can tell there is a forest queen who saves a baby and turns it into a shape shifting fawn.  The fawn impregnates Margaret who is William's lover.  Then there is a rake who abducts Margaret after killing all his kids.  William goes to save her and on the way crosses a river, promising that if he gets there safely the river can kill him upon his return.  He and Margaret end up dying in a shipwreck on the way back.

I didn't really get how "The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid" really figures into the whole thing.  Also, I am probably totally off - I am no good at figuring out this kind of thing.  Did anyone have any better luck?

With all that being said this album was amaziiing.  It is so far off from their older stuff, and I wasn't sure how I really felt about a "rock opera".  It seemed like it could be pretty cheesy but I really love The Decemberists and it's the only reason I decided to try it out.  I am glad I did.  This was so so good.  'Wager All' alone made this worth it for me.

DarkAvenger:
Well from what I can tell the Rake may be the shape shifting villain who kidnaps Margaret. Then he whisks her away and the Queen sees him. I suppose the Queen saved him as a child and he is indebted to her, but he wants one night to himself (this is where The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid comes in) then from what I heard she is happy to let him have his freedom for one night for taking Margaret away from William. Then she helps them cross the river. The rest has really already been told. I guess it won't make much sense until we get the full lyrics.

ListenToTomWaits:

--- Quote from: DarkAvenger on 10 Mar 2009, 17:48 ---Well from what I can tell the Rake may be the shape shifting villain who kidnaps Margaret. Then he whisks her away and the Queen sees him. I suppose the Queen saved him as a child and he is indebted to her, but he wants one night to himself (this is where The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid comes in) then from what I heard she is happy to let him have his freedom for one night for taking Margaret away from William. Then she helps them cross the river. The rest has really already been told. I guess it won't make much sense until we get the full lyrics.

--- End quote ---

hmmm i don't see it that way.

When the rake kidnaps margaret, the queen flies him to other side to aid his escape because she wants margaret away from her "innocent son" who is tempted by margaret. She tells the shapeshifter if she gives him his life for the night she will take it in the morning and that will be his debt to her repaid.


the rake is just simply a villain for villainy's sake as i see it.

also i want to make love to Shara Worden's voice.

Inlander:
Okay so this just got released (finally) in Australia so naturally I rushed out and bought it.

Five tracks in and I'm wondering when it's going to start getting good. Still, it does answer an important question: What's worse than a pseudo-prog rock-opera concept-album? A wan, lifeless pseudo-prog rock-opera concept-album! I guess the ugly and boring packaging should have tipped me off.

Maybe it will get better. I'll let you all know what I think when I've finished listening to it (because I'm sure you're desperate to know).

UPDATE: Okay, so the chorus of track eight finally got me interested and excited for the first time in this album. But just when I'm starting to get into it and rock out OH FUCK WHAT THE HELL IS THAT GODAWFUL GUITAR SOLO WHAT THE HELL IS THAT EFFECTS PEDAL BURN IT BURN IT BURN IT.

Oh, and while I don't mind Colin Meloy's singing voice, backing it with harpsichord is a really bad idea. Take the most nasal man in rock and back him with the most nasal keyboard instrument in music history! Genius!

(Only half-way through this album and I'm starting to get snarky. This is not a good sign, guys. And I love the Decemberists!)

UPDATE: So somewhere in the middle of track twelve I paused the album so I could YouTube Smiths songs to try to figure out if I really hate them or if I'm actually starting to like them. This suddenly struck me as much more important and interesting than listening to this album. The problem isn't that the album's bad. It's that it's so fucking dull.

UPDATE: OH THANK FUCK THAT'S FINISHED. I'll admit, the last two tracks were good - though why it took them four fucking goes at the title track before they nailed it is beyond me - or rather, why they chose to put the three dud versions on the album is. So the album ended on a high, but just because you find a diamond after sifting through turgid crap for almost an hour doesn't mean you're going to go down into the sewer again every time you want something pretty, if you see what I mean. Especially when the sewer has a track-skipping function . . . okay that metaphor got away from me, but you got the point. Ultimately I feel like I've wasted my money on an album I'll only ever listen to again when I get that "but surely it can't be that bad" feeling.

In hindsight I should've heeded the warning from my acquaintance in the record store when he made sure to remind me, when I bought the album, that C.D.s could be exchanged after purchase.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page