:thumbsup:
That's a good looking setlist

That does it, I'm listening to "What a Terrible World" while mowing the lawn tonight

I'm probably too much of a casual fan. I think I'm familiar with most of the catalog, but don't really recognize the names of the majority of their songs.
When I'm in the mood for this band, I usually just play the fuck out of the Crane Wife or maybe Her Majesty.

The disembodied entity who typically writes these missives is on vacation; this is being written by me, Colin Meloy. And I want to bend your ear about something.

A few years ago, I had a chance to hear a record by a fantastic artist, one Olivia Chaney. She made a record called The Longest River and I was so taken by it, particularly her arrangement of the old folk song “The False Bride.” She seemed to me to be channeling the great female folk singers of the British folk revival: Sandy Denny, Anne Briggs, June Tabor, Norma & Lal Waterson, Shirley Collins and Maddy Prior. We invited her to open a bunch of Decemberists shows in 2015 and afterward I made a pitch to her: let us be the Albion Dance Band to your Shirley Collins. Let’s start a band. Let’s make a record of old folk songs that will be as much about rediscovering ancient songs as it is an homage to that incredible era of British music, the 60s and 70s folk revival.

She, very kindly, agreed.

And so we Decemberists are very proud to announce the arrival of OFFA REX, our collaboration between the band and Olivia Chaney.

We rehearsed and arranged the songs out on my farm outside of Portland last summer; we recorded it with Tucker Martine at Flora Recording & Playback that fall. I sing two songs, Olivia sings eight of ‘em. One of the songs is an instrumental medley of two old Morris dance tunes, arranged by Jenny on accordion. Here’s the track listing:

The Queen of Hearts
Blackleg Miner
The Gardener
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Flash Company
Old Churchyard
Constant Billy (Oddington) / I’ll Go Enlist (Sherborne)
Willie o’ Winsbury
Bonny May
Sheepcrook and Black Dog
To Make You Stay

You can listen to "The Queen of Hearts," a song we learned from Martin Carthy, here. It’s about heartbreak in the face of unrequited love; to my ears it's as fresh today as it was when it was written three hundred years ago. That’s kind of the spirit of the record.

I love the new single -- a long overdue throwing out of the rulebook for these guys. They sound messy and kind of out of their depth, but in a way that feels freeing and open-ended. Also worth pointing out that, while most reviews are focusing on the synths, it's also one of the noisiest songs they've released yet -- a great mix of electro-pulse and big, sloppy guitars.