Album of the Week: The Decemberists - “The Crane Wife”
There’s nothing wrong with prog rock. My first college experience was all about soaking up new information. Unfortunately, little of that soaking up occurred in the classroom. As a fraternity pledge at a small private college in the South Carolina foothills I was exposed to all kinds of new stimuli. Most of them have been left along the way, but I still love a lot of the music that I heard there. The Indigo Girls, B-52s, the Grateful Dead, the Eagles all still strike a chord.
I had a fraternity brother who was a big Jethro Tull fan. I have hazy recollections of pre-party evening spent listening to the occasionally pompous flautist and his band of merry men noodling there way through classics like Aqualung, The Whistler and Locomotive Breath. It was really my first exposure to rock so “hard” and the oft-maligned prog rock world. But what really got me going was the 45 minute epic “Thick As A Brick”. I spent many hours analyzing lyrics, dreaming of the English countryside and trying to wring as much as I could out of the St. Cleve Chronicle.
Like much of the music from that time in my life, I lost interest along the way in Ian Anderson and his little Milton. Until the end of last year when Portland, Oregon’s The Decemberist released their major label debut “The Crane Wife”. 
I’ve been a fan of the band for a couple of years, their previous albums are delightful romps that are ecstasy for the overeducated. Picaresque in particular mixes sea shantys (Mariner’s Revenge Song) with tongue in cheek protest songs (16 Military Wives). And they are a fabulous live act (go and see them if opportunity arrives. So, I looked forward withanticipation, and a little bit of apprehension, to the major label debut. More apprehension as early reviews said “The Decemberists go prog rock”. My mind raced to Yes - a band I’ve never been able to figure out.
Now, “The Crane Wife” is a fine album. Nice sing-alongs such as “O, Valencia”, “Summersong” and my favorite “Yankee Bayonet” (I’m a sucker for a Civil War inspired pop song). It’s beautifully bookended by “The Crane Wife 3” on the front and the yearning “Sons & Daughters” on the back. But, it’s “The Island” that makes this album a beast worth reckoning with. A 12 1/2 minute neo-prog masterpeice. Seven minutes on is a riff that just needs a flute to make Ian Anderson seethe with jealousy. It’s this track and the later “Crane Wife 1 & 2” that make this album into one of the best of ’06. And made me crank the volume up on the iPod this afternoon.
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