In these digital days of one track downloads, someone should have told Colin Meloy that the album is a relic of an analogue past. Not only has The Decemberists’ front man had the temerity to produce a record that’s not just a few 79p garnering singles and instantly discarded filler, it’s a bloody concept album to boot.
Before the idea of another head-up-its-own-ass concept record sends you scurrying for the straightforward shelter of Now 86, let me say that it’s more than that. It’s more like a rock opera. Actually that’s much worse. So let’s forget the categories and delve into the record.
The Hazards Of Love is a record of stories possibly set in the 18th century. There’s a young maiden Margaret who is assaulted by some kind of shape-shifting demon, her young lover who looks to rescue her, an incorrigible bounder who murders his unwanted children and some kind of forest queen.
But these narrative elements are not overly intrusive or dominating. You don’t have to work too hard to get the gist of most of the strands but nor do you feel you need to. In fact most of the conceptual links on The Hazards Of Love come, appropriately enough, through the music.
Meloy refers to the songs as “suites”, which may seem pretentious but with a record that has more in common with a symphony or an opera, why not? Various musical themes run through the entire record. Some relate to the individual characters, some to ideas and some to moods. Songs run into each other, mixing elements of the previous track into the new one. There are four separate pieces called The Hazards Of Love – each featuring the same refrain but otherwise different.
So that’s the concept. The Hazards Of Love, lyrically and muscially, is conceived and executed as an entire piece. So what?
Well, it also rocks. And not just any old rock, we’re talking stomping, bell-bottom wearing hard rock. Even its sweeter, melodic moments draw inspiration from the Misty Mountain folk of Led Zepplin IV. Songs like Won’t Want For Love and The Wanting Comes In Waves / Repaid are stomping blues numbers with crashing beats and grinding riffs, while Wager All and The Queen’s Rebuke / The Crossing feature swirling psychedelic organs.
Underpinning this balls-out rock is a solid folk sensibility found in its archaic language, keening melodies and traditional instruments. Imagine Page and Plant wearing Aran sweaters and melding fiddles to their guitars and you’re halfway there. Or listen to the creepy Revenge where a choir of children give voice to the Rake’s offspring haunting their murderous father over a persistent harpsichord, before the song breaks down with scratching strings and drums like the hammer of the gods coming to exact divine retribution.
The Hazards Of Love is that kind of record. Brilliant, engaging, entertaining, interesting and complete. It may the last of its kind.
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