The Decemberists - Picaresque

Genre rock Publisher Kill Rock Stars External Links Kill Rock Stars

The Decemberists Present "Picaresque" seems a bit attenuated to this pop fan. I don't quite get why this supposedly literary effort represents an advance over Supertramp or the Zombies or Genesis. Lines like "You come from parents wanton/A childhood rough and rotten/I come from wealth and beauty/Untouched by work or duty" come across as affected--I mean, what insight am I getting here? And apart from the quite nice "16 Military Wives" these songs don't have a lot of energy. "Engine Driver" and "On the Bus Mall" have good melodies, sure, but a lot of this just doesn't strike me as particularly crafty, surprising or catchy. Where exactly in the world is this story occurring? In Portland? England? Russia? Nowhere at all or on the high seas? I don't know. The question is probably when, actually. OK, "I'm a county lineman/On the high line, on the high line/So will be my grandson/There are powerlines in our bloodline." This seems simply untethered whimsy, which I know is redundant, since whimsy is by definition untethered, but again, I don't get any sense of why they wrote these songs, why they're writing about being purloined in Petrograd, why they call cars "motorcars," why they care about Eli, the Barrow Boy. Sure, I know they're living in the past--but why? Is not the notion of picaresque one that could be expressed in modern terms, given the parlous economy and the general fragmentation of society? Might not be as picturesque as the old days, but it might be more exciting.

That said, I do like this better the second time through. I chalk this kind of thing up to the pervasive influence of early-'70s concept albums like Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick; one would never have imagined that sort of pretension would be in vogue again in this day and age, but it is. "The Mariner's Revenge Song" goes on for a while, lots of words. I am sure the band got a kick out of singing lines like "Find him, bind him, tie him to a pole/And break his fingers to splinters/Drag him to a hole until he wakes up naked/Clawing at the ceiling of his grave!" But I don't get a kick out of hearing them--in fact, it's a real chore. This is program music made by people who are ambitious to expand the scope of pop music, just like all those '70s prog-rockers. I have nothing against those ambitions, at least in theory, but in practice I prefer something far more direct and to-the-point. As I'm writing here, "Mariner's Revenge Song" is still carrying on--for chrissake, bring the thing to a conclusion already, enough with the accordion.

I hate to knock something like this--on its own terms it's quite accomplished. But the whole thing smacks of pastiche. They dress up funny for the photo on the back of the CD package. They credit "characters": Barrow Boy, Mariner, Spook, Fop. I have a hard time taking this kind of thing seriously at all, so it's to their credit I sat through it three times to write this review. And I find myself ever so slightly beguiled by this group--I'm sure we'd have a good time talking about books and history, we probably have a lot in common. You guys bring the cognac and the Incredible String Band albums, I'll provide the Maker's Mark and Memphis Jug Band compilation.