Artist: The Decemberists
Single: Volume I. Valerie Plame / O New England
Label: Rough Trade
Release date: 14/10/08
Link: www.myspace.com/thedecemberists
Other the course of the next three months The Decemberists will be releasing three volumes of singles under the banner of Always The Bridesmaid. Here’s what we thought of the songs!
Valerie Plame
The Decemberists have this knack of sounding either completely depressing or extremely happy with no middle ground. This song thankfully falls on the happy side, which is probably a good choice from them considering it’s the first song of this singles series. It’s got all the classic elements that I love about this band, the instrumenatition and the way the band works together works so well. This song feels like the lovechild of The Polyphonic Spree,an American folk band and some British pop band. Oh yes and did I mention that British band happens to be The Beatles? The ending is the most blatant rip off of ‘Hey Jude’ I’ve ever heard but guess what? It’s still great!
Rating: 4/5
O New England
Another happy one from those Oregonians (Oregons? Oregonites?). It’s a fairly strong song but lacks the chorus of ‘Valerie Plame’ to make it stand out. There really isn’t much more to in than that.
Rating: 2.5/5
4 responses so far ↓
1 wil // Oct 6, 2008 at 10:47 am
The Decemberists always feel hit and miss to me too, there’s plenty songs i love but some that i always find myself skipping…
2 oliverx12 // Oct 6, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Yeah i know what you mean
3 extinctlyville // Oct 19, 2008 at 5:25 pm
This is a review? First off, the ending of Valerie Plume isn’t a blantant rip-off, it IS Hey Jude and is quite intentional if you’re paying attention to the song. And O New England is a lovely piece of music, how can you sum it up in three sentences? “Eh, I didn’t sing along to it the first time I heard it, so I didn’t like it.” Please.
4 oliverx12 // Oct 19, 2008 at 8:38 pm
It’s just a hit and miss release really. It didn’t feel it was necessary to review that song for longer than the 3 sentences because there was nothing to it. I never said “I didn’t sing along to it”. What i suggested was that it lacked any sort of interest, and that’s coming from a fan of the band.
Thanks for the comment anyway though!
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