THE KING IS DEAD

All you need to know about THE DECEMBERISTS' 'The King Is Dead' is contained in Colin Meloy's avowal that he has gone back to his Americana roots. The consequence is that the progressive rock sheen so integral to the success of their last two five-star masterpieces ('The Crane Wife' and 'The Hazards of Love') is completely absent. Further, the beautiful English folk motifs prevalent on all previous albums are gone.

So what is left? I'm not really sure. I'm no aficionado of Americana, but if these represent American folk music, I'm not tempted to delve any further. The music may well be excellent - in fact, I'm sure it is - but it leaves me cold. I can't express my disappointment strongly enough that Meloy and co. have chosen this route. They've done short folk songs better in the past on 'Picaresque' and I fail to see the point of this. If someone had told me this was their long-lost debut album I'd be tempted to believe them, so far back into their past have they reached.

At this point I have to ask myself: am I being hard on the album because it's not what I wanted? My honest answer is no. I have a wide musical taste and would happily have been introduced to something new. But this? This is old.