I'LL BE YOUR GIRL

While still nowhere near the levels of their beloved "Crane Wife" and "Hazards of Love" albums, "I'll Be Your Girl" is certainly an improvement of The Decemberists preceding two albums. The warm synths that grace much of this album create a lovely sound that, while perhaps not so proggy, are definitely enjoyable. For me, the high point of this album is the roughly eight-minute "Rusalka, Rusalka/Wild Rushes," which brings back the sort of storytelling that made The Decemberists so popular to begin with. I also quite enjoyed "Severed" with its intimidating tone, though I warn that if you are a fan of America's current presidential administration, there's a good chance that you won't find the song quite as enjoyable. Also high points for me on this album are "Once In My Life," "Starwatcher," and the title track "I'll Be Your Girl." Overall, I don't necessarily think this essential to a prog collection, but I think its definitely worthwhile to have for a general music collection.

Realistically speaking, there's only one prog offering on this album, and that's the 8 minute "Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes". While not necessarily as proggy as some of their work off of "The Crane Wife" or "Hazards of Love", the song is absolutely the highlight of the album; it's a wonderful two part story that has a lot of great contrasts between the two halves. There's a great climax in the slow, dramatic first part that leads into the quicker, more cheerful second part, and it brings back some of the riffing organ work from their past albums. Definitely an essential part of their catalogue, and if the whole album were on the same level, it'd be 5 stars no question..

Apart from that song, there are some other great songs, though none of them prog. "Cutting Stone" is a great song that starts with a dramatic, folk-y theme, which repeats and mixes in the synth-pop elements that are all over this album. I don't love it all the time, but here it works really well. "Severed" is very predominantly in the synth-pop genre, but it's led by a distorted guitar and the vocals are dark and muffled, both of which work really well with the political theme of the song. "Starwatcher", alongside "Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes", is definitely one the more purely folk songs on the record, which I enjoy a lot. "Everything is Awful" is a great indie rock tune that's based on a single repeating verse with a few bridges. It starts out with just an acoustic guitar and one vocal, and by the end of the song it has layered vocals and gets pretty heavy with the distorted guitar and John Moen just beating the hell out of the drums, before transitioning into a chorus-like vamp that ends the song; definitely my favourite song after "Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes". "Sucker's Prayer" is a great tune with a slow rock feel; great emotional energy and lyrics in this one.

All and all, the album is okay, with a few highlight tunes, but most of it isn't anywhere close to prog. However, the few great songs and the one prog offering it does have is an improvement from their last two albums. In general, it's a little better than a 3/5, but it's a solid 3 from a prog perspective.