PICARESQUETIES

This isn’t really an album per se, and it isn’t quite an EP either. It was a companion disk to the vinyl version of the ‘Picaresque’ album on the U.S. Jealous Butcher release. As far as I know it hasn’t been released on its own, but there were some distributed during the west coast swing of the band’s 2006 tour. I’ve read it can also be downloaded from eMusic.

This is a very short collection of four outtakes the band recorded during the making of ‘Picaresque’, and includes two versions of the goofy ditty “The Bandit Queen”. The video of one of those versions can also be found on youTube. The songs are all pretty much acoustic, mostly Colin Meloy on guitar and Jenny Conlee on piano. The one kind of surprising track is a cover of the harpist Joanna Newsom’s “Bridges and Ballons” from her first album, which released only a few months before this album was recorded.

“Constantinople” is a weird twist on the ancient Greek take of Hero and Leander, the former a fair maiden and the latter the poor sot who pined for her during nightly visits to the tower where she was ensconced before finally drowning one night while leaving her castle. A typical ambiguously accurate historical vignette for Meloy, for sure; while “The Kingdom of Spain” is yet another Meloy story about a poor soul cum fodder of the Establishment, in this case an unjustly accused young lad who is sentenced to die by the callous king and queen of Spain.

Colin Meloy has a very predictable talent for turning period scenes and obscure literary references into the most enjoyable kind of faux-folk ditties that project his profound sense of self-amusement. Check out the video for “The Bandit Queen” or pretty much the entire “Decemberists” A Practical Handbook” DVD and you’ll see what I mean. This particular record isn’t anything to write home about really, but it’s a nice completer piece if you are into the band. A little better than collectors-only, but not quite great. Probably 2.49 stars. Pick it up if you run across it, but you can probably find most of these songs as sound samples around the web or as youTube videos otherwise.

peace