4 Out Of 5 Stars
On their fifth full-length CD, The Decemberists went all-in for a concept album about love and death. Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson were probably feeling tingles as Colin Meloy started working up this weird fairy-tail about Margaret and her shape-shifting saviour, maidens, white fawns, murderous paramours, a jealous woodland queen and other literary types in a 17-part song-cycle. Equal parts "Thick As A Brick," Richard and Linda Thompson's "Shoot Out The Lights" and Rush's metal concepts, "The Hazards of Love" is as complex as it is geeky.
In addition to all the pretense and encyclopedic folk-rock-opera goings on the make geeks drool, guest vocalists include Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, as well as Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Rebecca Gates of the Spinanes), and (bonus nerd points!) Robyn Hitchcock. The music swings from plucked banjos to crunching metal riffage, from 4/4 pounders to gentle, woodsy waltzes. There's also an evil sense of humor ("The Rake"), which helps leaven the seriousness of it all. And let's face it, "The Hazards of Love" wants to be taken really seriously. With Colin Meloy's bookish lyrics and unsung bearded guitar hero Chris Funk lays down such an amazing variety of licks, he makes the gumbo of styles come together mightily.
"The Hazards of Love" may have been the album to get The Decemberists to settle down, ultimately. Rich, bulky and ambitious, it gave way to the compositionally tighter and more cohesive "The King is Dead" two years later. But for sheer chutzpah, "The Hazards of Love" wins for one of 2009's best albums.
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