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Why The Decemberists Always Felt Like ‘Outliers As a Major Label Band’


The Decemberists' frontman Colin Meloy discusses the band's forthcoming double album and first independent release.

In a 2022 interview with Publishers Weekly, Colin Meloy talked about discovering author Stephen King in the sixth grade — writing that inspired his own work as a novelist of such young adult books as the Wildwood and The Stars Did Wander Darkling. The Portland, Ore. Band’s last album, 2018’s I’ll Be Your Girl was largely a provocative reaction to the 2016 presidential election, epitomized by the brilliant, searing single, ‘Severed.” But, as Meloy explains now, singing those angry songs during the tour that followed left him exhausted. A prog-rock track with massive fuzzy guitars, bombastic drums, chimes and careening synths, “Joan in the Garden” clocks in at more than 19 minutes and includes an instrumental interlude that sounds like supernal electricity punctuated by muffled voices and the THX audio company’s sonic logo.

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