Indie rock gets a bad rap for being more about skinny jeans and haircuts than it is about the music. Another staple of the genre, indie lyrical content is clogged with dense and self-consumed prose. While indie folk/rockers The Decemberists do have a definitive fashion sense, none of front man Colin Meloy’s songs detail how a recent romance makes him feel like a particular songbird in flight, and nowhere does he use the word “plasticize.”
Thank God. What has made The Decemberists stand out throughout the years is their substantive lyrical content, often based in history and folklore, which gives the band a personality both onstage and off that is borderline irresistible.
The Decemberists, whose publicist confirmed are scheduled to perform at this year’s Dillo Day, are Colin Meloy, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query and John Moen. Their music utilizes accordion, double-bass, Hammond organ and a whole slew of other instruments that give them a truly unique feel. Meloy’s standout vocals and the band’s diverse repertoire have produced a series of great albums, including the recently released The Hazards of Love, which, much like The Crane Wife, tells one continuous story throughout. NPR listeners voted 2006’s The Crane Wife their favorite album of the year, and it was also listed on Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2006.
Found on their 2005 album Picaresque, “16 Military Wives” has an upbeat tempo and their use of brass instruments shows how truly diverse The Decemberists’ music can be.
Colin Meloy leads the band in a performance of their wildly famous track, “Billy Liar,” one of The Decemberists’ most popular singles, at The Moore Theatre in Seattle. Can you discern the underlying adult themes?
“The Crane Wife Pt. 3,” from The Crane Wife. Despite the misleading name, “The Crane Wife Pt. 3″ is actually the opening track of the album which retells a Japanese folktale.