Track Listing

1. Crane Wife
2. Island
3. Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
4. O Valencia
5. Perfect Crime #2
6. When The War Came
7. Shankill Butchers
8. Summersong
9. Crane Wife 1 And 2
10. Sons And Daughters

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1870 in Music
• Released on: 2007-01-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Customer Reviews

Good album, but not their best...
"The Crane Wife" is, in many ways, a relief to Decemberist fans, in that it's clear that the band haven't dropped their style completely despite a move to a major record label in the US. However, it is clear that there have been some developments in the band's sound and approach, which carries both positive and negative consequences...

The first thing fans will notice about the new album is that the production is much sharper. What is more, the band have begun to broaden their musical outlook with tracks like "The Perfect Crime" and "When The War Came," which sound very different from Picaresque-era Decemberists. It is clear that the Decemberists have incorporated some of the sound they experimented with in their Tain EP into the new album. This isn't a bad move, in many ways, because it's always good to see a band move forward and develop. However, it does mean that the album loses some of that olde-worlde charm that we have come to expect from the band, though it still flairs up on the occasional track ("Shankill Butchers," "Yankee Bayonet"). This means less acoustic, folky, "Eli The Barrow Boy" type numbers, and more tracks with generic indie elements.

The standout tracks on the album are the three parts of "The Crane Wife," which are beautiful, melodic numbers based on a Japanese folk tale; the powerful "The Island" epic in which the band's 'rockier' sound is exhibited; the closing singalong "Sons and Daughters"; and the aforementioned, folky duet "Yankee Bayonet." Colin Meloy's imaginative, intricate lyrics are still present, as are his highly individual vocals. It is good to see the Decemberists have not dropped their emphasis on storytelling, which is one of their biggest appeals. Whilst some tracks take some time getting used to, repeated plays eventually bring you round.

Overall, I wish I could give the album four and a half stars, because it clearly is a good, solid effort with some brilliant tracks, and I really do like it as a big Decemberists fan. I do recommend "The Crane Wife," but suggest that people new to the Decemberists also check out their earlier albums, which are, all in all, superior in my view.

Eclectic
An eclectic mix of pop, rock and folk that never get boring - at times it comes close to sounding like a long lost Jethro Tull album from the 1970s, somewhere between Thick as a Brick and Minstrel in the Gallery - which can only be a good thing. Song twist and turn through changes of sound and pace to great effect.

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
This is a fabulous album, absolutely fabulous. One of my most anticipated of the year, it hasn't failed to live up to my expectations and I've been listening to it almost constantly since early October. It carries on Meloy's wonderful recepie of pop-folk-rock with increasingly-fashionable story-style lyrics. It centres around two song cycles, "The Crane Wife" and "The Island", both of which are over ten minutes long and brilliant. There are far fewer immediately likeable, catchy songs (like 16 Military Wives), indeed O Valencia! may be the only one, but instead they're subtler and take a listen or two. It's a dark album, too (the Shankhill Butchers; O Valencia!; even the Crane Wife cycle itself), and overall it's almost certainly their best so far. It's more mature and rounded, with moments of great poingnancy. The coupling of melodic, happy music with tragid lyrics is distinctly Morrisey-esque. Standout tracks are... well, they're all standout tracks but i particularly love The Island, Yankee Bayonet, O Valencia, and Summersong. And, also, after the downer that is the end of the Crane Wife, Summersong is an absolutely *perfect* closing track, giving a wonderful upkick of optimism. Wonderful stuff.