This
is the strongest Decemberists album
in a while. It perhaps isn’t quite as unremittingly wonderful as their mid/late
2000s work (The Crane Wife; The Hazards of Love), but I’ll Be Your Girl manages to capture their
trademark mix of innovation and sing-along rather better (and more consistently)
than their last couple of albums did. The
Decemberists are always instantly recognisable (thanks particularly to
Colin Meloy’s none-more-distinctive voice and Jenny Conlee’s accordion and
unique keyboard stylings), and all their work has similarly epic lyrical
aspects, drawn from mythology and historical whimsy. However, with each album
they approach things in a different way to the last. The heavy (almost classic)
rock concept album of The Hazards of Love,
for example, is musically worlds away from the concise, 80s-tinged retro-folk
of I’ll Be Your Girl. This still has
some of their trademark melancholy, but is overall more upbeat, musically at
least, with a new synth sheen in places, patches of driven 80s bass, and
notably catchy choruses. There are tracks that have the scope and scale that
mean they could sit comfortably on The
Crane Wife (‘Rusalka, Rusalka/The Wild Rushes’), but for the most part this
is more targeted and chorus-focused stuff. Easy to access and love.
sample track: Severed