the lyrics to Knife Fight made me laugh out loud

this song is gonna finally push me to listen to the Decemberists

One of my personal all time favorite bands! I hope you enjoy the journey, Ms H.

feel free to guide me on it, what to listen to first? I've added this and Burial Ground to my library and look forward to diving into the new album

Joe is the expert but I think The King is Dead is a good place to start. It's very accessible and shows off a variety of their styles.

excellent

listening now, love it immediately!

it's got Counting Crows and Arcade Fire vibes (with no predator frontman), good times

The first two Decemberists albums are my favorites by some distance.

Enjoy, MH!

the pirate days

Immediately thought of 'Passenger Side' by Wilco when I heard this song. Same exact guitar lick.

the Decemberists deep dive is going excellently, I listened to the first two albums yesterday

Yeah, plenty of that. But lots of just great jangly, folky indie pop too. I just think the songcraft on those first two albums is fantastic -- if the voice and literary pretenses don't bother you, it's just one immaculately written tune after another. Later albums where they get proggier and start incorporating more generic alternative rock elements are more uneven for me, but the best of that stuff is really good too.

They're definitely one of those bands where I listen back to them now and think, "Wow, this really sounds like the early 2000's."

well, the new single is incredibly proggy (at like 20 minutes) so maybe I'll like that stuff

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike that stuff on principle at all -- there are a lot of great extended pieces on their subsequent records ("The Tain," "The Island," parts of the Hazards of Love album -- they really lean into that overblown theatrical stuff and if you can surrender to it, it's pretty great). A lot of fans think The Crane Wife is their best album, which has a lot of prog/alt-rock elements to it.

I haven't checked out the new single yet -- I didn't really care for their last album, or the lead single from this one, and haven't really been in the headspace for a 20-minute Colin Meloy epic, but I will get around to it eventually for sure.

im with you
the first 2 are my favs

lets try something different

for all you elbow crazies