We haven’t heard from the Decemberists in years, really since the outtakes from The King Is Dead, Long Live The King back in 2011 and somewhere in between it all they suffered through Mumford And Sons eating their lunch and, much more important, Jenny Conlee’s cancer (now in remission) caused chaos on the concert tour.
I don’t get these years long breaks at all. If I took a three year break from my job I wouldn’t have a break. Plus, I’d get awful bored, so, I guest the Decemberist’s drummer John Moen felt much the same way because FIVE YEARS after his first solo album, released under the name Perhapst, the Portland, Oregan native has released a new album, Revise Your Album. And I guess it must be considered more than a busman’s holiday.
It is pretty good: very melodic, good rock and roll backbone, nice piano thumping along, memorable tracks like “Sorrow & Shame” and a really good “Ramble/Scramble” which the press release namechecks Squeeze on and once he does you can’t stop hearing Glenn Tilbrook on it.
Here’s some more info about John: ” drummer and harmony right-hand for the Decemberists, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Elliott Smith, and Robert Pollard’s Boston Spaceships, as well as the former front man of Portland’s legendary Maroons – has released his second album of gorgeously crafted pop-rock tunes, Revise Your Maps, under the name Perhapst on Jealous Butcher Records. ”
Fair enough, but the man over and above can absolutely write songs. Every time you get a track a minute or two, it has sung its teeth deep inside you. “Thousand Words” has no right to being this good. The playing is very tasteful, very pretty maybe too much so, and the album at 13 songs is too long. 3 song should have been cut, starting with “Queen Mary” and continuing with “Low Life” where everything we love hits the road and a smart hook can’t save us.
But the production is pristine and deep, and the sense of immersion is complete: “Moen shot the cover photo the record, and while Jonathan Drews manned the mixing board, Moen composed a drawing for each of the songs. These appear on the back sleeve and are a totally charming sort of inkblot test of each of the tunes.”
Only occassionally do they sound like lesser Decemberists outtakes and more often than that there is a drawing in to a different musical landscape, we have suffered through enough members of a band taking advantage of name recognition to unleash crap tracks. This ain’t that.
Grade: B+