| | With so much literary focus (as a whole) being turned to The Decemberists, their latest release and major label debut, The Crane Wife, has musicality that exceeds expectation and rebels against such a limited interpretation. Even though Colin Meloy employs his masterful work of historical artistry that is literature about war and death at its best (and thus, any notion of straight-story-telling-antics is gone), it is the combination of flawlessly constructed music with striking lyrics that declares: this group is not to be missed. Each element works to create an artists dream.
And the Decemberist is . . . well let's bring this into perspective, because it sets the stage for understanding great stories told with great lyrics. December 14, 1825, a revolt on Imperial Russia was attempted by army officers that led about three thousand Russians into battle. They were opposed to the Czar, and thus, pioneers of every revolution following. They cast the mold. Because these events occurred in December, the rebels were called the Decembrists. To take on the name Decemberist, was a very honorable title.
The album itself takes on the title from an Asian fable/proverb about a man who finds an injured crane in the forest and nurses it back to health so it can fly away by itself. After a couple days, a woman shows up at the house where love and marriage soon ensues. The husband and wife are very poor, so the wife suggests that the husband sells a very particular cloth that she weaves. There is one condition, that he not look at her in the special room while she is making the particular cloth. After so long, the husbands curiosity peaks and he looks into the room just to discover his wife plucking out her own feathers to intertwine them into the fabric. The wife sees her husband watching, and she flies into the blue never to return. The two songs that follow this storyline are "The Crane Wife 1 & 2" and "The Crane Wife 3."
The Crane Wife album has a lot to offer with a variety of sounds. From a twelve minute Floydian epic sung in three movements called "The Island: Come and See, The Landlords Daughter, You'll Not Feel the Drowning" to grotesque visuals of serial killing lullaby's in "The Shankill Butchers." Meloy's song writing is incredibly interesting. Narrative fiction is the nemesis for all song writers, but this is no burden for Meloy; instead he creates it a stellar piece of art. The lyrics take us to another place. Meloy is in front of us, reading from a book, the way that mothers and teachers have done for years now, however, the content is neither oversimplified, nor childish. Instead, the mature musical capability meets with poetics grounded in history. What we get is a rather revolutionary sound that does not conflict with the lullaby.
The Decemberists take us through a maze of unforgettable emotion that, in the end, proves to be their best work to-date. A low moment cannot be found in the album. Although it is a very somber and dark album, filled with haunting rhymes of war and death, there is a stark release and unexpected lift within each song. There is hostility, a call to arms, saber-rattling, chaos, death, love, more death, calming, silence, and soon peace-every word that best describes The Crane Wife, also describes war. And just as fast as it started "under the boughs unbowed" it ends in a chant: "hear all the bombs fade away."
:sloth
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| | Posted 11/30/2006 9:51 PM - 4 Views - 2 eProps - 0 comments
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