The Decemberists Return With New Album After Six Years

As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, the eagerly anticipated new album by The Decemberists, is now available via YABB Records (Thirty Tigers). Following a six-year break, the band’s ninth studio album, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, was released. Lead singer Colin Meloy and Tucker Martine produced the amazing double album, which also includes guest appearances by Mike Mills of REM and James Mercer of The Shins.

The Decemberists have been one of the most inventive, audacious, and exciting American rock bands for two decades. The Decemberists were formed in 2000 when guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist Colin Meloy relocated from Montana to Portland, Oregon, where he met guitarist Chris Funk, bassist Nate Query, and keyboardist Jenny Conlee. Their debut EP, 5 Songs, was released in 2001, and their hyperliterate folk-rock sound immediately established them as a unique group. The band joined with Kill Rock Stars for the release of the critically praised albums Her Majesty The Decemberists (2003) and Picaresque (2005), which was produced by Chris Walla, after their 2002 full-length debut with Castaways and Cutouts. The band’s lofty artistic goals were made evident in their 2004 EP The Tain, an epic 18-minute single track.

With the addition of drummer John Moen around this period, the band’s regular lineup started to take shape, and in 2006 they unintentionally signed with Capitol Records for their debut album on the major label. When the band released The Crane Wife, their most ambitious and daring record to date—a song cycle produced by Walla and Tucker Martine, who would go on to become a longtime creative partner—fans’ worries that they would stray from their signature sound quickly dissipated. The album added elements of ’70s prog, hard rock, and even quasi-disco to their palette. The New York Times, Rolling Stone, SPIN, Stereogum, and Pitchfork all praised the album highly and called it Best New Music.

A full-length concept album based on Meloy’s conception for a stage musical, The Hazards of Love, became a Top 20 smash three years later. With their first #1 album, The King Is Dead, which included the GRAMMY-nominated song “Down By The Water,” they once again outperformed themselves in 2011. Following the release of their album What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World in 2015, which featured the #1 AAA radio hit song “Make You Better,” The Decemberists, along with producer John Congleton, experimented with new sounds and musical techniques for their eighth studio album, I’ll Be Your Girl (2018). “Every band, even The Decemberists, a band whose records have always come bursting with verve, needs to refresh and reconsider its sound sooner or later, no matter how sharp it’s gotten over the course of a long career,” NPR Music wrote. “I’ll Be Your Girl captures a collaborative spirit that keeps the band sounding vibrant and alive.”