How time flies. It's been four years since the Decemberists enchanted their fans with "What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World". But some songs of the last album last so long that it didn't feel that long at all, especially since the waiting time was shortened very profoundly with the EP "Flora Songs" and the side project "Offa Rex". On their new CD, the band from Portland, Oregon, is now completely repositioning themselves. Not personnel, but sound. The songs go away from folk and approach the glamrock of the Seventies between T.-Rex and Gary Glitter, reminding partly of Giorgio Moroder and sometimes of well produced pop mainstream. From time to time the usual Folk-Esprit also flashes up. Colin Maloy is always good for a surprise.
"We haven't hung any pictures of Gary Glitter on our walls yet. We had a handful of songs and didn't know exactly what they had to do with each other. That's why I tried some synthesizer arrangements. All in all, we wanted to move out of our comfort zone, free ourselves from all possible habits and patterns of recent years. It was a daily decision from song to song. First it was about the song, then we defined the sounds and we dealt with the question of how to connect the individual songs with each other. Instead of a wild bunch of mixed songs, it became a coherent piece."
