The Decemberists The Hazards of Love
The Hazards of Love is the nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard. Think about it—it’s a prog-folk concept album inhabited by folklore characters and their salacious trials and tribulations. There’s even a fucking “Forest Queen” for god’s sake!
Perhaps this explains why the indie elite poorly received the record. It certainly isn’t “cool”. Yet I feel The Hazards of Love rightfully deserves a place at the table with some of the “hipper” inclusions on my list.
Hazards is, without a doubt, a pitch-perfect concept album, with melodic and lyrical themes threaded seamlessly throughout, a seamless ebb and flow, and all the trademarks of the Decemberists’ back catalogue mingling with some lovely surprises. It is so assured of itself, so meticulous in its construction, and, above all else, so massive in its sound. Even its connective tissue is staggering—the ominous twenty-nine seconds of “The Queen’s Approach” never ceases to give me goosebumps, as it segues perfectly into the dreamy romanticism of “Isn’t It a Lovely Night?”
The inclusion of Ladies Diamond, both Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, was one of the smartest decisions imaginable for a record of this scope. Stark’s ethereal folksiness contrasts brilliantly with Worden’s fucking massive bazooka of a voice, (beautifully cast as the aforementioned icy “Forest Queen”). Worden, quite simply, steals the show, elevating the album to legendary status; she makes what might have just been a great Decemberists record, to a simply great record.
While Colin Meloy has previously used his hyperliterate voice in the Decemberists to craft pop songs into short stories, The Hazards of Love is his novel. And while it may have been blackballed from the indie-rock intelligentsia, (and fuck them—they’re no fun anyway) the rest of us can explore a truly remarkable album, and bask in its pretentiousness without pretension.
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