The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love (2009)

Steve:

After the early 1990s, it became fairly common to encounter an old-style progressive rock album from a fresh new band. But by the 2000s, for a variety of reasons I had stopped actively seeking out progressive rock acts and turned instead to "indie rock" for inspiration. I followed publications such as Spin magazine, which would occasionally point me to interesting bands. My first revelation was a band called The Fiery Furnaces, whose 2004 album Blueberry Boat was touted as a sprawling progressive opus. Sure enough, it was, and in an entirely new idiom for me, blending Zappa-like musical shifts with electronics and urgent, Dada-esque vocalizations that were a wake-up call that progressive rock continued to thrive beyond the predictable format of the more traditional bands who populated the prog festivals.

With renewed expectations, it came as a surprise when The Decemberists entered the scene. They were marketed as an "indie" band, but tended towards long folky epics, with accordions and tales of maritime revenge. "Indie" tag notwithstanding, they seemed like the reincarnation of the fairytale-spinning prog storytellers of yore. I took notice when The Tain EP (2004), Picaresque (2005), and The Crane Wife (2006) hit the shelves, the latter being their first on a major label - Capitol. But for the most part, these albums felt like a lot of bluster and bombast without enough to keep me interested in the long term. 

Enter The Hazards of Love, an album I approached with low expectations. To my surprise, it's an immediately captivating album that develops an operatic story both musically and lyrically at a perfect pace, with shades of light and dark in balanced proportion. Even before I understood what the story was about (recall from prior posts that I rarely pay attention to lyrics without a concerted effort), I followed the emotion of the story through its dramatic build ups, its reprisal/reuse of key musical themes, and its expert use of guest singers to bring characters to life. In 2009, I proudly claimed this to be my favorite album of the year, and each subsequent hearing reinforces that opinion. It's one of the best rock operas I've ever heard.  

So what is it about? Colin Meloy (guitar, vocals) is the leader of this outfit, and he composed all but one of the pieces (keyboardist Jenny Conlee's organ/synth intro). The story is in the mold of a classic Shakespearean tragedy along the lines of Romeo and Juliet - forbidden lovers who triumph over their fate by ultimately ending their lives together in the name of love. I recommend reading the fine synopsis on Wikipedia for further details.

For some examples of what puts this concept album in an elite class, consider first the clever recurring musical themes. There are formally four parts to the title track, spread throughout the program, each of which culminates in a similar manner but frames a different situation and arrives from a different musical idea. Likewise, "The Bower Scene" and "Margaret in Captivity" appear early in the first and second acts respectively, using the same ominously suspenseful music to prop up different scenes.

Next, the guest singers on this album really shine. The jealous and vengeful Forest Queen appears on two tracks ("The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid" and "The Queen's Rebuke") voiced by Shara Worden, who offers a thoroughly convincing performance that gives me goosebumps. Margaret, the protagonist, is given a vulnerable reading by guest singer Becky Stark. Colin Meloy voices most of the other characters, and he gets deep into each one to bring them to life.

Maybe the best example of this album’s expert craft is the transition from “Isn’t it a Lovely Night?” to “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid”. The former is a sweet, peaceful number led by a lovestruck accordion melody. The latter begins abruptly just as the former’s last note fades, with a variation on the same melody, but in a minor key played staccato on the harpsichord. One can almost see the jealous Queen bursting into the room and discovering the lovers. 

The Hazards of Love is the last album I ever listened to by the Decemberists. I decided, rightly or wrongly, that anything they did after it would be disappointing. I had also heard that their follow-up, The King is Dead (2011), was a "return to the roots", a sign of disaster in my narrow mind. (I tend to shy away from overly folksy or country music made in the name of "going back to the roots" due to biases on my part, so I accept responsibility for that.) But even if I do return to the band's work, I suspect that The Hazards of Love will prove to an example of "lightning in a bottle" - a miracle that only happens once, and I would be extremely surprised to learn that further works of equal quality were still in them. If you've heard them, please feel free to prove me wrong. 

Dan:

My first exposure to the genre of rock opera was with The Who's Tommy, released in 1969 and a huge, unexpected hit. Musical theater had also adopted rock scores with a psychedelic flavor, such as Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, and others. It was hard to escape this subgenre even as it sprawled beyond its limitations. Prog rockers frequently revisited the theme of a long-form narrative, such as Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Of course, as a Camel fan, I was used to themed albums about snow geese, marooned soldiers, human migration, and other inspirations of the team of Susan Hoover and Andrew Latimer.

I was also fairly well versed in classic opera, thanks to my mother who loved to listen to the live broadcasts from the Met on Saturday afternoons. She would explain the stories to me; she and I were both fond of Wagner. My parents also had several of the comic operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan (The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado, among others), which I remember well. 

None of that prior experience prepared me for my first encounter with The Hazards of Love a few months ago. After reading a brief summary of the story online, I was not impressed and could not imagine how such a mundane fantasy could be worthy of a rock opera. But as I heard the music, I understood what the fuss was about. So I looked forward to the time that I would revisit The Hazards of Love for the blog.

The second full session of listening revealed so much more than my first exposure. It's a beautifully crafted suite that does not seem like an opera but rather an integrated collection of songs that form a magnificent whole. I love the recurring themes that work like motifs in classical music - Wagner would be proud. I also appreciate the variety of musical sounds that The Decemberists create collectively. I hear organ, accordion, banjo, steel guitar, and strings providing accents in all the right places in and around the basic guitar-based instrumentation. The recording is outstanding for a standard CD. Clearly, Colin Meloy is a great musician with a convincing singing voice, but he is also a master conceptualizer. Hazards of Love is a masterpiece. 

Unlike Steve, I was tempted to explore The King Is Dead (2011) as I'm not afraid of "roots" music such as alt country and bluegrass. I can confirm that there is an abundance of rootsiness on display in The King Is Dead. Lots of banjo, fiddle, mandolin, tambourine, acoustic 12-string guitar, etc. It's not bad, but its impact is not close to that of The Hazards of Love. I would compare the "new" Decemberists to The Jayhawks but lacking the sublime vocal harmonies between Gary Louris and Mark Olson. Meloy's vocals might benefit from moderation with backing harmonies, the way Steve Earle was able to use Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams. Meloy also ain't got 'nuff backwoods twang for full membership in the alt country crowd.

Magma - Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré (2009)

Steve:

Magma debuted in France in 1970 with a double concept album that featured lyrics in an invented language and music in a complex jazz-rock style. The concept was no mere lark, as Christian Vander (drummer, composer, and leader of the enterprise) continued to expand the story about human settlement on a fictional planet called Kobaïa; the invented language used is known as Kobaïan. Magma's music and lyrics are not as much understood as they are felt. The spirituality of late-era John Coltrane was supposedly a huge influence on Vander at the time, and one does not need to decode the meaning of the rhythmically sung syllables in order to understand the deeply spiritual meanings imparted in Magma's songs.  

Vander composed so much music throughout the 1970s and early 1980s that much of it never found its way onto an album. Much of this music became known only through live performances and recordings. 1975's Hhai/Live is definitive, but once a new generation of listeners discovered Magma in the early 1990s (including yours truly), a slew of old live performances were released on CD on the band's label, Seventh Records.  

In the mid 1970s, Vander and Magma conceived two separate trilogies, each representing different facets of the ongoing Kobaïan saga. The first trilogy, Theusz Hamtaakh, saw the official release of two albums, Ẁurdah Ïtah and 

Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh, although the first part of the trilogy, Theusz Hamtaakh, was only performed live. The second trilogy, Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré, only had one studio album, Köhntarkösz, released in the 1970s. In brief, the band had unlimited imagination but a limited budget, and after a flirtation with soul music in the early 1980s, Magma disbanded, seemingly for good.

In the late 1990s, Magma re-formed: still led by Christian Vander but featuring a new cast of young players and singers (along with Christian's wife Stella, who had been in the original band). By this time, they were among my favorite bands, and I traveled to San Francisco with my friend Rob for their appearance at the 1999 ProgFest. Their performance was so overwhelming, I was nearly moved to tears. The band perfectly re-created their complex magnum opuses like "Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh" (all 40 minutes of it) and I considered myself extremely fortunate to have seen it, assuming it was a short-lived reunion.

However, Magma's story did not end there and still has not, as of this writing. Christian Vander pulled out some unreleased works and gave them a proper, full-bodied studio recording. The first of these was KA, which was intended to be the first part of the Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré trilogy. In 2009, the third part was released: Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré itself.

Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré is an ornate suite filled with scatting, operatic vocals, jazzy piano flourishes, busy drumming (Vander is amazing on the drums), and musical sections that rank among their most emotionally potent pieces. My favorite section by far is known as "Hhai", occupying roughly minutes 4 through 15 of the suite's second part. This has long been one of Magma's most beloved pieces and has been played as a standalone song on several live albums (for the record, my favorite version is from Bobino 1981). It features Christian Vander singing the lengthy, emotional introduction (Vander rarely took lead vocals, at least in the early days, but his vocal range is remarkable), followed by a spirited instrumental section and solos, and continuing with a full chorus of voices singing the emotional finale. My description doesn't do it justice, but this track is a cathartic experience. Hearing "Hhai" in the context in which it was originally intended is worth the price of the album by itself.

Magma is definitely an acquired taste and requires a bit of patience. Their repertoire largely consists of huge conceptual epics sung either in Kobaïan or in French, making them a bit inscrutable to many people. To give some perspective for the novice listener, the Mahavishnu Orchestra's Apocalypse (1974) is similar to Magma's vision, as both bands have always placed a high priority on beauty in their music, although the repetitive chorus of voices chanting words you can't understand might be unsettling at first.

I count Magma among my favorite bands ever and look forward to their next release.

Dan:

Since I'm a Magma novice, stuck here on earth, it is difficult to offer insight into this challenging album. It's challenging in a good way, of course, because I've learned that many of my best discoveries in music came via a longer path to understanding and appreciation. I do like what I hear, which generates images of sacred rites conducted in otherworldly places by alien beings. Because Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré is not comparable to anything I know, the common reviewer fallback of comparing it to other albums or groups doesn't work here. So I'll take another tack.

Magma literature frequently cites the influence of John Coltrane's later work on Christian Vander's notions of spirituality. (Vander's Offering project (Magma Présente Offering, 2003) demonstrates his dedication to Coltrane on a 4-CD box set which I've not heard.) I am somewhat of an expert on Coltrane, having read three biographies, heard virtually all of his 103 recorded albums, and currently keep 44 of his albums in my collection of LPs and digital files. I started my Coltrane collection in the early 1960s with the release of My Favorite Things. I surveyed his earlier Prestige albums and owned all of his Impulse! albums. His key sideman roles with Red Garland and Miles Davis were also required acquisitions. Before I turned 21, I saw Coltrane's quartet with McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison perform two sets in July 1965 at a small club in Cleveland, Ohio where I grew up. 

Trane's late search for self-understanding led him well beyond his best-known works. From 1966 to his death on July 17, 1967, his recordings reflect an almost frenzied quest as he sought to "clean the mirror" to achieve greater self-awareness through his music. His quest was definitely spiritual, as his most famous work, A Love Supreme (1964), attests. But increasingly his music stretched boundaries with respect to themes, improvisations, bandmembers, duration, and cultural influences. Much of it is hard to sit through, especially live performances that included solos lasting close to an hour. His duets with drummers Elvin Jones and later Rashied Ali are intense exercises testing the endurance of both musicians and audiences. These later works were not fully absorbed by jazz musicians, who preferred to show off their Coltrane-isms in tenor solos like Trane's were in the earlier 1960s. 

Relatively few artists undertook what Christian Vander is credited with - translating the spiritual essence of Coltrane's obsessive quest into large works for chorus, drums and diverse instruments. Remarkably, Magma's translation captures what I feel about late Coltrane, but I never would have imagined it possible. While the music on Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré does not cover any Coltrane compositions, his spirit seems to be embedded in the proceedings. 

The Vander-Coltrane connection begins with the drums. The whole Magma ensemble are in conversation with the drums, just as Coltrane's ensembles converse with the polyrhythmic drumming of either Jones or Ali. The extended forms used by Magma also mirror Coltrane's increasingly lengthy performances, such as the sprawling versions "Afro-Blue" on the CD version of Live in Seattle (recorded on 9/30/1965) and Live in Japan (recorded 7/11/1966). Magma also expand the size and range of the ensemble to produce multiple layers of sound, much as Coltrane augmented his own ensembles, especially on Ascension (1966) but also Kulu Sé Mama (1966) and Om (1967).

Both Coltrane and Magma make music of great beauty because of their spiritual inspirations. Neither are "easy listening," but both are rewarding experiences when approached with open ears.