In the early aughts, when indie rock and garage revivals were all the rage, the Decemberists both fit in and stood out from their peers. They based their low-key music on acoustic folk and coffeehouse pop, but then they added a layer of baroque Victorian instruments and set it to lyrics that read more like folktales from hundreds of years ago.<\/p>\n
The sincerity of Colin Meloy\u2019s vocals and the dark story-songs lent this album a dreamy, timeless quality, one that veers closer to a progressive-rock folk approach. It\u2019s an album with atmosphere, one that draws the listener into the stories, but also works as background music. It\u2019s not entirely successful or consistent, but the best moments and the overall vibe still rank among the band\u2019s best.<\/p>\n
Still, more than the music, the old-timey characters are what bring this album to life. The German soldier smelling flowers outside a concentration camp, the French-Canadian uncle running moonshine who gets shot on the trail, the prostitute who sells herself to soldiers on the docks to feed her children, the Spanish conquistador, the sad French Legionnaire who misses home. These are relatable, doomed characters who find joy where they can and whose heartbreak can inspire their descendants. <\/p>\n
The album moves confidently through its midtempo songs, quickening the pace for the poppy \u201cJuly, July!\u201d and slowing down for \u201cCalifornia One\/Youth And Beauty Brigade,\u201d always serving the story and not the other way around. The musical high point is \u201cOdalisque,\u201d which is driven by a spooky Hammond organ and a pace that quickens as the song progresses; it\u2019s also the darkest story here.<\/p>\n
The back half of the album tends to falter; \u201cLegionnaire\u2019s Lament\u201d makes its story pop with an accordion, but \u201cClementine,\u201d \u201cCocoon\u201d and \u201cGrace Cathedral Hill\u201d are overlong and slow, although the latter works as a love song. And even if the 10-minute closer \u201cCalifornia One\/Youth And Beauty Brigade\u201d doesn\u2019t quite justify its runtime, its scope is admirable and it works as a fitting closer to the album, simply by celebrating youth and a future of possibilities. One imagines it\u2019s a future that can be avoided by the nine cautionary tales that precede it.<\/p>\n
Castaways And Cutouts <\/i>was the start to a fascinating career and is still considered one of the band\u2019s best albums, and likely their most literary. It also announced their arrival in a major way and remains one of the most idiosyncratic and original debuts of the last 20 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":34451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9567],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46291","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-decemberists","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46291"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}