WHAT A TERRIBLE WORLD, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL WORLD

It's no secret that The Decemberists have turned their back on their more pioneering earlier folk prog sound for that of an indie rock band with their last album The King is Dead.

So, we fast forward to this new 2015 offering from the band entitled What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World. My deeper feelings that this indie band was only playing prog rock dress up all along, did little to soften the disappointment of this album.

To start off with, the first track The Singer Addresses His Audience is a musical confirmation that the band have changed and that their fans know about it and are disappointed. Regardless, "change they must" is stated in a vague sarcastic tome.

A great start it's not. Now where off to a faux sixties pop song replete with a cliched horn and string arrangement and corny lyrics that would have been apropos for a group like Spanky and Our Gang or the Cowsills. After the pop slop of Cavalry Caption where onto the third song Philomena. Philomena is a fifties pastiche of Frankie Avalon "pining songs" like his hit Venus, that comes complete with "oh-ah" girl group backing vocals. The gimmick in this song is that the narrator wants to do more with his Phelomena than just kiss her or hold her hand, and tells her so. How shocking this is in the 21st century?

After this tripe we're into some songs that fall into the indie folk rock vain that the band has purported to inform us about. Of these three, Lake Song, The Wrong Year and Till The Water's All Gone, describe relationships with missed communication and work well.

Unfortunately, the spell doesn't last long before we come across the first solo acoustic guitar song with a typical finger picked folk arrangement whose lyrics reveal a young boy that's come down from the mountain to sell his body for sex. Again, how shocking this must be for an eleven year old to hear. What annoys me most about this song is it's melody line that seems almost identical to Mark Knopfler's song Fare Thee Well Northumberland from his excellent homage album to American roots music, The Rag Picker's Dream (2003).

Indeed, the following song Better Not Wake The Baby has a bit, a very tiny bit, of Knopfler's ironic lyrical style as the narrator sings that you can do what ever you want, including gouging out an eye, as long as you "don't wake the baby!"

Anti-Summersong, Easy Come, Easy Go and Mistral are more indie folk rock songs that jump from faux bluegrass to twangy country rock. All are forgettable.

The penultimate song sounds exactly like something Neil Young would compose if his lyrics were merely trite.This solo acoustic number, backed only with harmonica played after the verses, only makes you pine for the real thing.

The album closes with another forgettable indie rock song titled A Beginning Song. A Beginning of The End Song would have been more appropriate.

After I finished listing to this disappointing album, I pulled out the originals from my collection that included Roll Back by Horslips,The Mountain by Steve Earle with the Del McCoury Band, The Rag Picker's Dream by Mark Knopfler, and Unpugged by Neil Young.

Because, there ain't nothing like the real thing baby!

Share this THE DECEMBERISTS review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to SteveG
• Report this review (#1347835)
• Buy THE DECEMBERISTS music online with PA partners
• Show all THE DECEMBERISTS MP3/Stream
• Go to THE DECEMBERISTS page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for THE DECEMBERISTS related discussions