the Decemberists - Her Majesty

year 2003 review: In the band photograph that accompanies Her Majesty the Decemberists, the Decemberists appear gathered around a piano, mugging histrionically for the camera. With their manic gesturing, costumes and absurd handlebar moustaches, they both mock and engage the performer’s frantic desire to entertain and please. Last years Castaways and Cutouts marked the appearance of the Decemberists before a national audience, and with it they laid out the aesthetic and approach that also characterizes Her Majesty the Decemberists.

Colin Meloy, the songwriter and lead singer for the band, has said that he is tired of writing about the angsty lovelives of twentysomethings. Here he turns to tropes of exoticism and the past that are even more tried – like clipper ships scented with cardamom and myrrh, and the seduction of young men by attractive Japanese geishas – proving that what may be played out in the context of an 18th century adventure novel for young boys is startlingly fresh material for a rock song. Meloy freely adopts historical personae and locales for his songwriting, placing the Decemberists out at sea in one song and picking up the part of a young gymnast in another.