When an album carries 17 tracks, a prelude and interlude, one song in four parts, and another reprised in the concluding minutes, you know you’re not exactly dealing with gobby punk rock. But then it is arch-prog folk-pop opus crafters The Decemberists that are responsible in this case, and such extravagance is becoming somewhat of a base expectation. But even by their already established opulent standards (last album ‘The Crane Wife’ was hardly a shrinking violet in the meadow of progressive posturing) concept piece ‘The Hazards Of Love’, based loosely around 60’s Brit folk revivalist Anne Briggs’ EP of the same name – though it’s hardly a worry that neither you or we know who she is – is a great towering thing, shackled in armour and firing flaming arrows at fleeing villagers and thatched dwellings. Based on the kind of raconteur-folk that characterised their early career and the chest-beating collective-created tapestry of recent years, they position themselves yet again between the content driven skits of The Mountain Goats/Jeffry Lewis and the more fiery arrangements of Arcade Fire/Patrick Wolf, with a side helping of Pink Floyd. ‘Annan Water’ exists in roughly the same space as Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes, but with an invigorated theatricality, ‘The Queens Rebuke / The Crossing’ is a writhing distortion crackling serpent fossilised in a 70s swamp and the tight fighting brightness of ‘The Rake’s Song’ recalls The New Pornographer’s knack for honeycomb pop with a kick. Yeah, it can get a little dense in there – medieval French vibes, minstrel-esque laments, psychedelic flutterings, children’s choir, heavy metal guitars, the lot – but where ‘The Crane Wife’ was maybe a little too much about the arrangement, the angles and the audacity, ‘The Hazards Of Love’ exhibits a warmth that keeps you engaged for the duration.
