After 2006’s The Crane Wife, it wouldn’t have been unfair to
wonder if The Decemberists were capable of doing anything new within
their chosen aesthetic: shambling ballads rife with Chaucerian wordplay
and baroque instrumentation. It seemed like they’d have to integrate
some new element in order to remain interesting.
So, with The Hazards of Love, the question is: Does the band
take things in a new direction? The answer is both yes and no. On “The
Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing,” the band adopts a heavy-metal swagger,
with psychedelic synth interludes (á la Ray Manzarek) and
histrionic guest vocals by Shara Worden.
The biggest innovation is that this is The Decemberists’ rock opera,
a 17-track tragic romance about impregnated maiden Margaret, her
shape-shifting lover William, William’s mother The Queen, and the
murdering Rake. As each song bleeds into the next, the band thumbs its
nose at the contemporary single-track-download era and references a
whole set of 1970s prog-rock signifiers.
Certainly tracks like “Annan Water” and “The Hazards of Love 2
(Wager All)” could have come off any Decemberists album. But it’s the
insistence on cumulative effect and rock’s potential for the theatrical
that distinguishes this work. Taken as a whole, The Hazards of
Love is an effective, affecting piece of work. When the centerpiece
track, “The Wanting Comes in Waves,” is re-invoked toward the album’s
end in a soaring “Reprise,” it hits like a spine-tingling epiphany.
The Decemberists’ latest may be a variation on a theme, but it’s a
damn fine one.
This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2009.