The Decemberists, The Crane Wife

The Decemberists' first major label offering is a rather unusual record. Sounding more like their 20 minute song cycle, The Tain, rather than their most recent album, Picaresque, it's an odd mixture of song styles which veer between their usual quirky folk-pop and a sort of bizarre prog rock. The album is named after an old Japanese folk tale in which a poor farmer saves a crane which has been shot in the wing. Soon after a woman turns up on his doorstep. He marries her and eventually she agrees to weave silk to keep them from ruin so long as he never enters the room while she works. The silk brings in money but her health begins to decline. Eventually, the greedy farmer wants to see what she does so he creeps into the room only to find that she is the crane and she has been plucking her own feathers to weave the silk. The spell is broken and she flies away, never to return. The three-part cycle recounting this tale essentially bookends the album and is a mournful and moving story. The album also contains another song-cycle called "The Island" which is made up of three distinct parts too and is about the kidnapping-rape-murder of a girl. In between these pieces which musically differ from much of the back catalogue with their use of noisy rock guitar and sweeping orchestral flourishes, are a number of the usual poppy classics such as "O'Valencia" which is essentially a Romeo & Juliet-style story, a rocky tale of intrigue called "The Perfect Crime" and a story about two lovers torn apart the Civil War in "Yankee Bayonet" which features guest vocalist Laura Viers performing a duet with lead singer Colin Meloy.

This album really requires concentration to fully grasp the intricacies of the storytelling which is really what Meloy does best, but this record also serves to showcase the band's true musical talent as it's varied and experimental without becoming hardgoing. Even where they venture into prog rock territory the hooks remain and each piece of each song cycle manages to stand alone. Ultimately, despite its denseness, this album may stand as the band's best overall effort as it doesn't have any of those hard-to-get through slogs like past efforts (see "The Bagman's Gambit" on Picaresque or "Los Angeles I'm Yours" on Her Majesty the Decemberists).

In the end, I think this is a contender for album of 2006 and is certainly worthy of more than a little consideration.