Castaways And Cutouts [Original recording reissued]

This is possibly my favourite Decemberists' album thus far, and is much better than the very good, but overly-serious Arcade Fire, falling somewhere between their style of Neutral Milk Hotel-inspired psychedelic folk-prog, and the more quaint and quiet style of bands like Belle & Sebastian, The Field Mice and that great "folksy" Bright Eyes album from earlier this year. The songwriting is just terrific (easily as great as those bands listed above), with chief songwriter Colin Meloy crafting ten-tall tales about architects, puppeteers, legionnaires, farmhands and fishermen, all backed by delicate melodies, robust production and a nice burst of cabaret-influenced theatricality. The best songs, if we can pick through the continuing excellence that runs from track one through to track ten, offer little snapshots of characters and places, with the musical arrangements and use of instrumentation often working alongside the lyrics to help suggest a certain time and place.

The opening song for example, Leslie Anne Levine, opens with a quiet bit of acoustic guitar and a sound that draws on more recognisable indie-pop conventions, as Meloy demonstrates his wit and storytelling prowess with the lyrics. The next song, Here I dreamt I Was an Architect is even better... unfolding around a perfect pop arrangement and featuring some of Meloy's greatest character development... demonstrating that, as a songwriter, he's just as influenced by the Broadway musical writers and playwrights as he is by the likes of Leonard Cohen, Stuart Murdoch and Bob Dylan. Some songs have fairly generic indie-arrangements, favouring the acoustic guitar, bass, drums and a smattering of keyboards, whilst others song break off into more adventurous territory, employing strings, horns, accordions and other such instruments that help to further create the world that Meloy is building.

Whether delightfully simplistic, or instead, veering off into surreal realms of baroque pop or music hall, the arrangements always stand out; mostly through the great performance of the band or through Meloy's firm understanding of melody and hooks. One of my very favourite songs from this album, July-July!, is almost as shameless in it's pop sophistication as ABBA or the Beach Boys, with the band taking a great vocal hook (I love the way Meloy phrases the chorus so that it sounds almost like "do you lie, July?") and then shaping the guitars, drums and the occasional stab of a funky organ alongside it. As with the preceding two songs (and the songs yet to follow), Meloy's penchant for storytelling is at it's most impressive, as he effortlessly mixes elements of character observation, knowing wit and what could be taken as heartfelt confession, and mixes it all up to give us lyrical couplets of pure gold, my favourites amongst them including the devilish "and we'll remember this when we are old and ancient, though the specifics might be vague, and I'll say your camisole was a sprightly light magenta, when in fact it was a nappy bluish grey".

A Cautionary Song is one of the band's most evocative and theatrical pieces of music, relying heavily on the accordion and those stomping drums, as Meloy sings about harlots and sailors in a slightly detached, narcoleptic delivery that would probably make Beck proud. As the story within the song intensifies, Meloy and the band become more satirical with their arrangements, bringing in references to burlesque cabaret and marching band percussion to help convey the feelings at the heart of the characters... a clever little device that is used throughout many of the songs here (though never to the point where it becomes predictable or too obvious!!). The next song, Odalisque, begins as something of a ballad, with a slow, lingering rhythm and Meloy's sleepy vocal delivery gently intoning "they've come to find you odalisque, as the light dies horribly, on a fire escape you are, all rare and resolved, to drop... and when they find you odalisque, they will rend you terribly, stitch from stitch 'til all, your linen limbs will fall", capturing a lulled mood of slight melancholy before the song veers off in a direction that seems to suggest free-form jazz and anthemic Britpop simultaneously!!

The closing run of songs is excellent, moving from Cocoon, a lush piece of jazz-pop, building around piano, percussion and double-bass, whilst Meloy's lyrics take a slightly political edge, to the yearning acoustic strum of Grace Cathedral Hill ("I'm sweet on a green-eyed girl, all fiery Irish clip and curl, all brine and p*ss and vinegar"). The Legionnaire's Lament is an up-tempo confessional that lays the groundwork for The Mariner's Revenge Song from 2005's great album Picaresque, with a great Divine Comedy style 60's pomp-swing (and a very Neil Hannon-esque lyric) merging with the more rustic-accordion and banjo flourishes. The next song, Clementine, is another of my personal favourites... a slow-tempo alt-country ode to lost love and lost youth, with Meloy at his lyrical best ("you slept in your overalls, as the wrecking ball bereft you of house and of home, and left you with sweet f*ck all") and the band on top form.

The closing track is really two tracks merged together in one long, ten-minute piece of musical splendour. It gives the record the epic, widescreen climax it deserved, bringing Meloy's little musical journey to a close, and putting the full-stop on a novel's worth of adventure. Castaways and Cutouts is a magnificent album, one that demonstrates superbly that the conventions of progressive-rock can influence lo-fi indie-music, and that lyrical intelligence and heartfelt emotion can go hand in hand with theatrical pomp and a cynical wit.