I imagine that Colin Meloy was once the sort of arty, trench-coated high schooler his classmates wanted to either seduce or cram into a locker. His Portland-based indie-pop combo, the DECEMBERISTS, inspires a similar ambivalence: Meloy’s hyper-literary leanings often muck up an otherwise decent tune or engaging tale, and when he’s at his cloying, old-world-romantic worst, he leaves me cold in the same way a lot of Elephant 6 acts did in the 90s. But there are some devastatingly great songs–the Decemberists have a rare knack for interweaving fantastic hooks with full-blooded characters. Like Randy Newman, Meloy prefers stories about tragic saints and charming rogues; the most vividly drawn tale on the Decemberists’ new album, Picaresque (Kill Rock Stars), “The Sporting Life,” imagines a paranoid and gravely injured athlete left on the playing field to contemplate his failings. The song’s rhythm is ripped clean from “Lust for Life,” though I doubt Iggy Pop would ever have come up with lyrics like “they condescend and fix on me a frown.” –J. Niimi
