If it ain't Baroque... The Decemberists show little growth on their third full length of indie pop, Picaresque. The Decemberists have always been on the line for me, not as great as Neutral Milk Hotel or early Belle and Sebastian and clearly derivative of those bands (as well as being a bit too quick to put on the Renaissance Fair garb), but always enjoyable. With the album's production flourishes from "The O.C." approved Chris Walla, it continues the band's consistently good output, but stays nonessential.
Merriam-Webster translates the title to "of or relating to rogues or rascals; also : of, relating to, suggesting, or being a type of fiction dealing with the episodic adventures of a usually roguish protagonist," which should come as no surprise. "Eli, the Barrowboy" tells the tale of a poor fruit-cart owner who longs to buy a silk robe for the one he adores, even after she is dead. Similar to Sawyer's backstory in "Lost," "The Mariner's Revenge Song" sings a tale of a boy grown up, searching for a philandering conman who ruined his mother's life. In "We Both Go Down Together," a nobleman sings of a "dirty daughter from the labor camps," giving up his social status (i.e., "Go Down") in favor of love.
These songs are all eloquent and elegant, however they're also rather impresonal. The band is so wrapped up in their literary style, that too often the songs feel more like style pieces and lacking in heart. Two songs break that mold and seem much more current and direct. "The Sporting Life" comes directly from Colin Meloy's life (despite borrowing a lot of imagery from "Stars of Track & Field"), as he sings of struggling to live up to his father's dreams of having a star athlete son. The R&B drumbeat, guitar rhythm, and bouncy trumpets give the song a very upbeat feel, despite Meloy's somber, affected croon. Swells of strings interject at several moments, causing a small endorphin rush. "16 x 32" is also much more current - it's an indictment of Bush's big-D Democrat foreign policy. Over-the-top and brassy, the sing-songy chorus of "if America says its so, its so" is, not surprisingly, anti-Bush, but, much like "Team America World Police," the celebrities wearing politics as fashion and the absent minded media are also fitting targets.
When The Decemberists are most over-the-top like these two songs, I can really get into it. However, the album also has a lot of bare, stripped-down songs, which I find hard to make it through, especially when the lyrical content is that same sort of coy, fey, impersonal storytelling. "From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea)" is the best example. Meloy's plaintive voice seems grating as he cries out "Mr. Postman, do you have a letter for me?," as the song plods along at a snail's pace.
There was a theory in screenplay writing that if you have at least three great, memorable scenes, you have a good movie. If we apply that test to pop albums, Picaresque passes easily. Take "The Sporting Life" and "16x32" and add opening song "The Infanta" with its lively, rambling military beat, and you've got three great pop songs. The rest is uneven (some pretty good, some painful), but for a pop album, that still makes it worth owning.
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