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The Decemberists
Hazards of Love
Review By Matt Conner
As if it’s taking a stand against the crashing waves of change within the music industry and ever-shortening tastes of consumers, the Decemberists’ latest, The Hazards of Love is an album in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Forget short attention spans. Forget dumbing down the material. Colin Meloy and company have a story to tell and, boy, do they tell it well. Every element here is precisely laid out, every layer skillfully constructed and edited to ideally suit or augment the others. Hazards’ female vocals, delivered by My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden and Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark, perfectly compliment Meloy’s own delivery, especially on “Won’t Want for Love.”
The album ultimately reflects the collective’s intellect, moving beyond Meloy’s own literary expertise and curiosity. The four-tiered title track(s) are the album’s centerpiece The female protagonist, Margaret, encounters some unique and even creepy characters (take a listen to “Margaret in Captivity”) while the four tunes reveal completely different ideas, lyrics and melodies. It was as if Meloy dreamed up his own personal musical challenge and constructed a cohesive story around it all. The Crane Wife could easily stand as most bands’ magnum opus, a thorough, brilliant work worthy of multiple listens year after year. Yet Hazards is proof of true artistry.
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