[The Decemberists The Tain Download
Oludare Padilla
"I never was a metal head," remarked Colin Meloy in an Earlash interview last July. "It's something in my later years I've come to regret a little bit just because everybody has their stories of when they were a metal head. And it wasn't until recently that I started listening to Black Sabbath and started appreciating it."
Two albums and a six-song Five Songs EP into their career, The Decemberists' are beginning to seriously define their sound; a sudden plunge into, say, heavy metal, seems unlikely. Yet the first movement of The Tain EP, the band's new 18-minute composition based loosely on the 8th-century Celtic Ulster cycle's central poem "Tain Bo Cuailinge", finds Meloy and the others most immediately concerned with-- am I about to say this?-- serious Ur-metal riffage. Granted, Decemberist metal is not going to weigh down the Dominique Leones of the world, but make no mistake: Never has this band sung a flag so black, a maiden so iron.
The opening of The Tain is indeed jarring, though there's always more than meets the ear with this band, and the disc's dark acoustic guitar opening is not without foil: Pay attention to how Colin overdramatizes the dark line with his heavy plucks, disarming its sense of foreboding. When the rest of the band joins him in unison, what should be enough of a killer riff for friendly genocide is undermined by the organ's funny whir and Rachel Blumberg's gentle cymbal taps. In short, the sound is off-kilter, though not without ample deception, and only hints at the level of sophistication to come in the remaining movements.
The Decemberists have consistently proven that they understand the tensions that can be exploited in song: Morbid verses are set to straightforward, "fun" pop instrumentals ("July July"; "Chimbley Sweep"), narration is often not Colin's own, but another's ("Leslie Anne Levine"), inconsequential banalities are granted cosmic musical significance ("Song for Myla Goldberg"), sincerity is performatively lampooned ("I Was Meant for the Stage"). The Tain is no different: In fact, it's easily The Decemberists' most carefully considered and sophisticated effort yet-- to a limited degree, some of Colin's subtle musical humor even depends on cursory knowledge of its bizarre Celtic cycle namesake. In short: the cycle's most celebrated tale is how Queen Medb's army attacks the town of Ulster with the intention of carrying off their great sacred bull, and only CuChulainn, the story's hero, is able to resist the invasion and defend the town. To call a queen, as Colin does, a "salty little pisser," is a brilliant conceit, matched only by his decision to set her raid for a bull (her "shiny prize") to bombastic hard rock hooks.
When the song reaches its third movement, Colin switches the focus of his narrative to how CuChulainn, originally named Setanta, became "CuChulainn", or literally, "Hound of Cullan." As a mournful bassline sways, accompanied by occasional strums of heavily distorted guitar, Colin assumes different points of view with each passing line, and the band swells to an ironic degree of celebration upon the words, "Here come loose the hound/ To blow me down," the moment at which Setanta is attacked by King Cullan's guard dog.
This is not to say that one cannot at all appreciate The Tain without knowledge of Celtic mythology-- though, for me, personally, the interaction between the instrumentation and Colin's lyrics has always been The Decemberists' most fascinating trait. Take The Tain's ghostly fourth movement, by far the entire composition's most poignant melody. Rachel assumes vocals akin to her orphanry on "Chimbley Sweep", this time accompanied by light piano and bowed cello. The accordion finally makes its somewhat tongue-in-cheek appearance at the bridge, fighting with found sounds and music box bells. Meloy reassumes vocals for the fifth movement, which restates The Tain's original theme-- though not before he beautifully overextends himself in lines like, "Darling dear, what have you done?/ Your hands and face are smeared with blood," subjects that last word to a strange guttural contortion.
With each release, The Decemberists grow more sophisticated in their songcraft and subtler in their wit. The result, naturally, is that their releases are increasingly more demanding on the listener. Meeting a record on its own terms, though, is to a large extent a forgotten responsibility. Especially given its disorienting opener, The Tain EP is dense musically and lyrically, a bona fide grower, but certainly worth the effort to unravel it.
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Heavy riff, almost doom in the early babblings, this piece of music turns out to be a more "Decemberists"song and features languish vocals and slow paced music. The whole topped by the melancholic voice oftheir front man (Colin Meloy). Fine and dark passages (with some strings in the background) do bring a strange atmosphere and I haveto admit that it is with quite a pleasure that I listen to this long song (almost twenty minutes), havingendured a weak experience with their previous album ("Her Majesty").This is a much diversified epic, with some fine stroke of inspiration (the short accordion part for instancebetween Rachel vocal part). This long song is by no means boring and on the contrary it offers mixedatmospheres.The closing part being another heavier one, just as it had begun. It is with some relief that I welcome this EP. At least, the band hasn't forget their very good song writingof their debut. Let's hope they keep on surfing this positive wave.Three stars. social review comments Review Permalink
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2008 Review this album Report (Review #182335)
I've been struggling to write an intro to this review of The Tain. I want to really hammer home the concept that this is the album that saved modern rock 'n roll for me. Without The Tain, I wouldn't have taken Radiohead seriously, tried out Muse, realized that there was more to modern prog than a bunch of heavy metal rejects or purposeful weirdos. And, the punch line is, I bought it because it was like three bucks! It's just an EP! But it's more than a mere EP friends...it's solid gold. This is where The Decemebrists, long since having dabbled in artistic pomp, come of age. This is music like no one has made since 1975. This is...The Tain.The Tain opens with the slow, slinky, sexy acoustic riffage of...uh...well, "The Tain Part I." What do you want? It's Sabbathy, they say, and I can see why. The riff itself, which slides up and down the guitar neck at will, and is augmented at the instrumental breaks by guitar, bass, blocky organ and snappy drumming. The result would be enough to scare any number of small dogs. This quickly breaks into "Tain Part II," which is, I guess, kind of Deep Purpley. Or maybe it's more Sabbathy. The point is, the riff is much simpler and faster, but it allows the band to work more effectively around it, stretching out within the less confining structure. Sadly, it's over before you can say jackknife (an odd difficulty; for something that's almost twenty minutes long, certain sections of The Tain seem awfully short). Still, "Part III" doesn't disappoint. A very pretty, pastoral number, with a very lilting refrain and a cello spot in the middle that approaches bleeding gorgeousness, the center spot of The Tain creates a pleasant counterpoint to the hamfistedly heavy first sections of the record (it might actually be my favorite part). It's only with "The Tain Part IV" that a single sections overstays its welcome a tad. And, hey, even if this one part is a TAD, just a tad, overlong, it's still based on a catchy, pleasant folk melody, and features lovely, cold singing by...some chick who isn't Colin Meloy! So you can't really call it a boring droner. Not that you'd want to, it's a satisfying section that fits right in with the rest of the song (and dig those goofy instrumental breaks!). What I find most amazing is that "Part V" actually manages to cap the whole thing off in a deserving way. It's a pure rush, jamming the speed and looseness of the second part, but managing to retain the noble qualities and riff of the first part, eventually bleeding into a towering, cathartic choral, with twenty Colins layered on top of each other. Or maybe it's like three Colins, but you get my point. The very end is also fantastic: each instrument getting a take the opening riff, before dissolving into just Colin and the acoustic. Now why does that ending sound familiar? OH YEAH. It's how Thick as a Brick ends...And, to be perfectly honest, the twenty minutes of The Tain play like the long lost third side of Tull's infamous record. And I mean that?when I say that no one has made an album (excuse me, EP) like this since 1975, I wasn't kidding. This is classic prog quality. It can't quite crack the five star point for me since there aren't any kickass solos, and there's not a lot of emotional depth to the thing...I mean, dude, it's a twenty minute song about stealing cows. What do you want? But it's got pretty much everything else in favor for it. The flow is magnificent; each section bleeds brilliantly into the next, to the point that it wasn't until "Part IV" that I even realized that they probably spliced recordings together, rather than just do a single long take in the studio. Each section is also brilliantly written and memorable, and even if there aren't too many soul shattering solos, not an instrument is out of place across the entire recording. Not much emotional depth perhaps, but at the right moments, very atmospheric. And a word about the story. Some of my colleagues seem a bit disappointed that The Decemberists have chosen to do a more abstract telling of this Irish founding myth than The Horslips' seminal version. I ask, why? I find this "less faithful" version of the story an interesting counterpoint to the 1973 album. Some things to notice include the fact that the battle--perhaps the entire point of The Tain--is absolutely bypassed, snuck cautiously between Parts "II" and "III." Also, does anyone else get the feeling that "Part IV" is told from the perspective of a storyteller relating the tale, giving the entire album an existentialist, perhaps metaphysical feel? Hmm...The only real fault you can drag against the album is that it's a little too short; there's not a lot of wiggle room for expansion within the five-plus-themes/18-and-a-half minutes of the EP (oh, by the way, when I say the only real fault of an album is that it should be LONGER...that's a good sign).If Radiohead snobbily experimented their way into prog, and The Mars Volta druggedly jammed their way in, then the Decemberists are more like I and you. They pretty much just picked up their instruments, steadied themselves, and clubbed their way into prog rock, whether it liked it or not. The result is The Tain. As I said, the band had experimented with longer song formats and multi part suits before, but this humble EP sounds like nothing the band put out before. It was a turning point, paving the way for more complex, or at least better thought out, things to come. But it's more than a historical hinge; The Tain has a quiet charm that never quite fades away, and for that reason, it shall always hold a special place in my heart. It is a pity that this EP seems to sneak by without making much of a name for itself; you'd be doing yourself a tremendous disservice if you let this one get away. social review comments Review Permalink
Posted Saturday, March 21, 2009 Review this album Report (Review #207922)