The Decemberists
Castaways & Cutouts

Every time I listen to this album I can't help but smile. And what generates it is not just the melancholic euphoria produced by the "shipwrecks" nor the light and disturbing joy generated by the "scraps," which from the schooner on the cover float into cosmic space to reach Magritte's little men and Chagall's naïve figures.
I smile thinking of all the pop iconoclasts; those who consider the term synonymous with poor quality, music only good for the gullible: in short, rubbish.
Because the genre of this excellent debut, precious and opaque like a rough diamond, can only be defined as pop; at most, the more meticulous than me would add indie, or maybe folk, but those are subtleties.

The fact is that those who hastily overlook this Decemberists album, being misled by the disliked genre, truly miss out on something.
Colin Meloy, the leader of the group and author of the lyrics as well as the music, somewhat reminds me in his approach and voice of a great of the more irregular and imaginative pop: Robyn Hitchcock, a true Syd Barrett devotee. Like the former Soft Boys member, Colin weaves bittersweet, lethargic melodies, but not lacking in sudden surges and bursts of light.
The first two tracks on the album "Leslie Anne Levine" and "Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect" are worth listening to on their own and perhaps even purchasing it. The former is undoubtedly one of the best songs heard recently, with a Spoon River-like opening that is memorable: "My name is Leslie Anne Levine / my mother birthed me down a dry ravine..."; the latter presents itself as an acoustic "trap," ensnaring you in its coils without escape, rocking you like the pitching of a derelict schooner (the one on the cover?).
But there are other arrows in the quiver of Meloy and company: the folk ballad with Kurt Weill influences "A Cautionary Song"; the classic beauty of "Odalisque," with its sudden changes of rhythm; the silky weaves of "Cocoon," with the piano and steel guitar leading the slow motion; the prolonged farewell, almost ten minutes, of "California One Youth and Beauty Brigade," a kind of summa of the band's great potential and unusual talents.

Don't miss the opportunity: come aboard and listen to the tales of the December sailors; there's no telling if their enchanted vessel will dock in your port again next month.