Photo Credit: Holly Andres
After a six-year hiatus, The Decemberists will fully return on June 14 with their ninth studio set, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, via YABB Records (Thirty Tigers). The forthcoming expression presents as a double album produced by lead-singer Colin Meloy and Tucker Martine. It has been previewed today with a 19-minute stringer, the second offering off the impending set.
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again represents the ensemble’s longest album to date and their first intentional double record. Across the set, the band demonstrates reciprocal acknowledgment of distress and strokes of aspiration, juxtaposing emotions and experiences via their so-called “redemptive testament,” with guest appearances from fellow Portland, Ore., resident and city frequenter, The Shins’ James Mercer and R.E.M.’s Mike Mills.
“‘Joan in the Garden’ has been kicking around as an idea since the I’ll Be Your Girl sessions. I got into a Joan of Arc kick after reading Lidia Yuknavitch’s beautifully batshit novel, The Book of Joan. I wanted to make my own version of Joan — but the song that came was as much about the creative process as it was about the actual woman, about angelic visitation and creative visitation and the hallucinogenic quality of both,” Meloy expressed.
A transportive prog-rock epic, “Joan in the Garden,” presents with an element of orchestrational pull akin to a big band feel, with merciful builds flanked by thunderous instrumentals and impassioned lyrics that fizzle with recognition of the group’s long-awaited return: “For a time/ Write a line/ Erase a line,” and inspired by Yuknavitch’s Joan archetype, “In the dawning light/ As she left her body/ Gifted second sight / Did she lay her dowry by.”
From big builds to light instrumentation, a sense of artistic buoyancy comes through just past the 11-minute mark before electric guitars and drums and lines like “We stand,” “We pray,” and “Break it all so we can build it again.” Stream The Decemberists’ second LP preview below. Read about their initial single release.
Pre-order As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again.
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again Track Listing:
- Burial Ground
- Oh No!
- The Reapers
- Long White Veil
- William Fitzwilliam
- Don’t Go to the Woods
- The Black Maria
- All I Want Is You
- Born to the Morning
- America Made Me
- Tell Me What’s on Your Mind
- Never Satisfied
- Joan in the Garden
