Blogs
  • Go! 3/7-3/9
    06:00PM 03/07/08
  • R.E.M. Accelerate: An Advance Review and Song-by-Song Analysis of the Band's New Album
    04:06AM 03/08/08
  • Your Weekly St. Louis Food Blog Digest
    03:45PM 03/07/08
  • This Is Hawkwind -- Do Not Panic
    06:08PM 11/09/07
Recent Articles

Recent Articles By Aaron Ladage

  • Bloc Party
    8 p.m. Friday, September 14. Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard.
  • The Rapture
    7 p.m. Thursday, May 10. Pop's (1403 Mississippi Avenue, Sauget, Illinois).
  • Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk
    8 p.m. Saturday, April 14. Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center (3301 Lemp Avenue).
  • Explosions in the Sky
    All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (Temporary Residence Limited)
  • Blackpool Lights
    7 p.m. Saturday, June 10. Creepy Crawl (412 North Tucker Boulevard)

National Features

  • Houston Press
    "It Was Like an Armageddon Movie"

    For days after Hurricane Rita, a Texas prison was hell on earth.

    By Chris Vogel
  • SF Weekly
    The Candidate

    Our columnist knows Ralph Nader's running mate all too well.

    By Matt Smith
  • The Pitch
    How Not To Be a Rap Star

    First of all, lay off the Ecstasy.

    By Nadia Pflaum
  • Village Voice
    Project Runaway

    What becomes a gossip columnist most?

    By Michael Musto

If he hadn't found a successful career in music, Colin Meloy would've made a kick-ass history teacher. Since 2002's Castaways and Cutouts, the eccentric songwriter and Decemberists frontman has told tales of pirates, Civil War refugees and Chinese trapeze artists with flair, like a long-winded Dennis Miller ranting in song. Meloy's yarn-weaving lyrical style continues with his band's latest release, The Crane Wife, but there are some substantial musical differences this time around. "The Crane Wife 3," the album's opening track, forgoes the accordions and most of the colloquialisms of albums past, opting instead for forthright vocals and acoustic guitars. Meloy also seems to have developed a penchant for '70s prog, the most effective simulacrum of which takes place around the eight-minute mark of "The Island: Come and See/The Landlord's Daughter/You'll Not Feel the Drowning." Every once in a while, the band's old style bubbles to the surface. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. The important thing, though, is that the Decemberists continue to push forward — even though they're still singing about stuff that took place centuries ago. <

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