Music Review: The Decembrists – The Hazards of Love
If anyone were to create a rock opera influenced by British folk, it would be the Decemberists. Even for a band known and loved for their “olde-fashioned” descriptive narratives involving suicide, war, and/or forbidden love, completing and offering such an epic and structured album comes with significant risk. Many of today’s music listeners have grown up with programmable cds, and one-song mp3s. The Hazards of Love hearkens back to the 1960’s and 70’s when LPs demanded to be listened to in their entirety and in their original sequence, when rock operas such as The Who’s Tommy commanded one’s attention span with lofty payoffs of brilliant stories and musical progression. Can it work in 2009?
With seventeen tracks and nearly an hour of music, The Hazards of Love walks the line of over-indulgence carefully, offering a twisted, bizarre cast of characters in an equally eccentric story of a woman named Margaret, her shape-shifting lover, and the jealous Forest Queen. Fortunately, while the convoluted tale might be daunting to some, the songs also stand well enough on their own to make the album worth digging into.
The album is meant to be listened through all together and in sequence, and the music is especially gripping when consumed as a whole if you bother to listen closely. Thematic arrangements wind their way through the album, often appearing in suites and lacing things together in a way that enhances and underlines the lyrical narration. Musically, the record splits its time between acoustic folk balladry and rock riffs, often in the same song. The Hazards of Love is not a record I expect everybody to love, but I’m having a great time listening to it and I suspect I’m not the only one. The album is endlessly fascinating and very entertaining. The Decemberists have expanded their sound and stretched themselves, a gamble that has produced something entirely fresh and remarkably satisfying. Here’s to taking chances.
