Crane Wife, The - Decemberists

...The first track, The Crane Wife 3, sets an amazing tone for the album. It's part of a trilogy of songs, eccentrically out of order and telling the Japanese folk tale of a man who helps a wounded crane, gets a beautiful wife who can make beautiful cloth, gets greedy and doesn't notice his wife's deteriorating health. It's a beautiful acoustic song that sets the standard, and if you like it you'll like the rest. After the 'end' of the Crane Wife's ...
...the paragraph big. The Crane Wife 1 & 2 is the dramatic beginning of the album, conveniantly placed near the end. It's almost as long as The Island but with a more obvious difference between parts- the first being upbeat and almost triumphant and the second being slow, beautiful and ultimately mournful. Sons and Daughters is the last track on the album and it deserves to be. Intentional or not, some last tracks carve a niche as being 'last tracks', ...

Furbystein 24.01.2008 (27.01.2008) · Read full review
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Review of Crane Wife, The - Decemberists

...Japanese folk tale. Lyrically, The Crane Wife is built around two different narrative ideas: a re-telling of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and the Japanese folk tale of the ‘The Crane Wife’. Musically, anything and everything goes. Twelve-minute epic ‘The Island’ features the band’s predilection for storytelling through their lyrics, rather than resorting to the clichéd angst and melancholy favoured by other contemporary bands. A bold choice as the ...
...of it: deliberately putting ‘The Crane Wife 3’ at the start of the album, while 1 & 2 come later, or dressing up in period costume for live performances. In fact, they could even be said to have toned down their eccentricities for this album, especially in the instrumentation. But in the end, when they make music like this, who really cares? ...

cazzie_alice 18.05.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Crane Wife, The - Decemberists

...track. The first song The Crane Wife Part 3, is an excellent opening track Meloy's poetic vocals providing an excellent accompanyment to the acoustic guitar introduction. then his voice cooly driving the song foward. Yankee Bayonet, a love song stuck with me a while after and became a staple of my walk to school listening, Catchy and poetic the song always made me smile even though i was usually freezing. O Valencia! was another catchy one Meloys ...
...the 11 minute ballad, The Crane Wife Part 1 & 2, starting off similarly the Part 1 its a beautiful song great to listen to when travelling especially when commuting to work. Note: I've only mentioned songs the stuck out to me on the album this is the track list: 1. The Crane Wife Part 3 2. The Island-Come & See/The Landlord’s Daughter/You’ll Not Feel The Drowning 3. Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) 4. O Valencia! 5. The Perfect Crime No.2 6. ...

Pop-Aural 01.07.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Crane Wife, The - Decemberists