The Decemberists Release New Single 'Oh No!' Off New Album 'As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again'
The Decemberists new album will be out on June 14th.
By: Josh Sharpe May. 15, 2024
The Decemberists have released a new single, “Oh No!” The track, which appears on their forthcoming new album is chock full of The Decemberists most defining characteristics - vibrant storytelling, rich musicality and a cleverness that’s become signature to Meloy’s lyricism.
Colin Meloy says, “Oh No!” is the sort of song that just tumbles out of you. It all started with the first line — “It was on a wedding night / How they danced by the firelight” — and flowed from there. In my mind, the narrator of the song is channeling the two brothers from Emir Kusturica’s immortal film, ‘Underground.’ This song is about causing havoc, causing chaos, its narrator forever followed by an even greater form of chaos, a great darkness. But it’s a darkness you can dance to!
The Decemberists new album, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, will be out on June 14th via YABB Records (Thirty Tigers). Their 9th studio album after a 6 year hiatus, is a remarkable double album produced by lead-singer Colin Meloy and Tucker Martine and features guest appearances from The Shins’ James Mercer and REM’s Mike Mills. The album is available for pre-order HERE today.
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again is not only the longest Decemberists album to date (and their first intentional, proper double-LP, split into four thematic sides, no less) but also their most empathetic and accessible, its 13 songs like semaphores of mutual recognition for our fraught times and faint hopes. The existential slog and capitalist vexation of “The Reapers,” the opiated delusion and jumbled jingoism of “America Made Me,” the guileless tenderness and absolute surrender of “All I Want Is You”: As It Ever Was is the redemptive testament of a band finding new communal hymns by revisiting several old modes at once. This, Meloy will tell you proudly, is the best Decemberists album—perhaps even the ultimate realization of 22 years of work. As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again rings with the urgency and ardor of right now, maybe more than ever before.
The band teased the new album first with the release of the single, “Burial Ground.” “The Decemberists are so back,” declared Flood Magazine. "’Burial Ground,’ revives the band’s warm, familiar folk-rock sound,” said Paste Magazine. “Frontman Colin Meloy’s buoyant vocals carry genuine eagerness and charm as he sings of graveyards over twinkling instrumentation. Loose guitar and flourishes of horns embellish the whimsical track, giving off a Beach Boys-style vibrancy.” They followed up the track last month with a 19-minute prog rock epic titled “Joan In The Garden,” and a potent love song titled “All I Want Is You.”
The Decemberists are currently out on an expansive North American tour with both spring and summer legs. Highlights include The Salt Shed in Chicago on May 21st and the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on May 24th. The band will return to their home turf, wrapping the tour in Troutdale, OR on August 3rd at McMenamins Edgefield. All tickets are on sale now with a full list of tour dates below.
For 20 years The Decemberists have been one of the most original, daring, and thrilling American rock bands. Founded in the year 2000 when singer, songwriter, and guitarist Colin Meloy moved from Montana to Portland, Oregon and met bassist Nate Query, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, and guitarist Chris Funk, The Decemberists’ distinctive brand of hyperliterate folk-rock set them apart from the start with the release of their debut EP 5 Songs in 2001. After making their full-length debut with Castaways and Cutouts in 2002, the band signed with Kill Rock Stars for the release of the acclaimed albums Her Majesty the Decemberists (2003) and Picaresque (2005), which was produced by Chris Walla. The 2004 EP The Tain – an 18-minute single-track epic – made the band’s grand creative ambitions clear.
Around this time the band’s permanent line-up fell into place with the arrival of drummer John Moen, and they made the unexpected leap to Capitol Records for their first major label album in 2006. Fans’ concerns of whether the band would alter their trademark sound quickly vanished when they delivered their most ambitious and audacious record to date in The Crane Wife, a song cycle produced by Walla and Tucker Martine (who would become a longtime creative partner) that added elements of ‘70s prog, hard rock and even quasi-disco to their palette. The album was met by wide acclaim from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, SPIN, Stereogum, and was named Best New Music by Pitchfork.
Three years later, The Hazards of Love – a full-length concept album based on Meloy’s idea for a stage musical - was a Top 20 hit. In 2011, they topped themselves yet again with their first #1 album, The King Is Dead, which featured the GRAMMY-nominated song “Down By The Water.” After their 2015 album What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World, which included the #1 AAA radio hit “Make You Better,” The Decemberists changed up their sound and explored new approaches to making music on their eighth studio album I’ll Be Your Girl (2018) with producer John Congleton. NPR Music wrote “Every band needs to refresh and reconsider its sound sooner or later, no matter how sharp it's gotten over the course of a long career — even The Decemberists, a band whose records have always come bursting with verve... I'll Be Your Girl captures a collaborative spirit that keeps the band sounding vibrant and alive.”
The Decemberists have toured the world, performed at countless major festivals, and even founded Travelers’ Rest, a festival of their own curation in Missoula, Montana. The band has appeared on The Simpsons, collaborated with Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda, and released their own crowd-funded board game Illimat. Colin Meloy is also the author of The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid and the New York Times bestselling Wildwood Chronicles as well as two picture books, The Golden Thread: A Song for Pete Seeger and Everyone’s Awake. Meloy’s Wildwood Series is currently being made into an animated feature starring Carey Mulligan, Mahershela Ali, Angela Bassett, Jermaine Clement, Tom Waits and more.
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again Track Listing:
- Burial Ground
- Oh No!
- The Reapers
- Long White Veil
- William Fitzwilliam
- Don’t Go to the Woods
- The Black Maria
- All I Want Is You
- Born to the Morning
- America Made Me
- Tell Me What’s on Your Mind
- Never Satisfied
- Joan in the Garden
Tour Dates:
- co-bill w/ The Head And The Heart ^
-w/ Special Guest Ratboys unless noted with a “*”
May 15: Austin, TX - Bass Concert Hall
May 17: St Louis, MO - The Pageant
May 18: Milwaukee, WI - Riverside Theater
May 19: St. Paul, MN - Palace Theatre - SOLD OUT
May 21: Chicago, IL - Salt Shed - SOLD OUT
May 22: Detroit, MI - Royal Oak Music Theater - SOLD OUT
May 23: Indianapolis, IN - Rock the Ruins
May 24: Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
July 12: Bend, OR - Hayden Homes Amphitheater^
July 13: Oakland, CA - Fox Theater
July 14: Los Angeles, CA - The Bellwether - SOLD OUT
July 15: Los Angeles, CA - The Bellwether
July 18: San Diego, CA - Humphrey’s - SOLD OUT
July 19: Tucson, AZ - Rialto Theater
July 20: Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren
July 22: Santa Fe, NM - The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing - SOLD OUT
July 23: Denver, CO - The Mission Ballroom
July 24: Sandy, UT - Sandy Amphitheater
July 26: Missoula, MT - Kettlehouse Amphitheater
July 27: Spokane, WA - Spokane Pavilion
July 29: Vancouver, BC - Queen Elizabeth Theatre
July 31: Seattle, WA - Woodland Park Zoo Amphitheatre* - SOLD OUT
August 1: Seattle, WA - Woodland Park Zoo Amphitheatre* - SOLD OUT
August 2: Bellingham, WA - Mount Baker Theatre
August 3: Troutdale, OR - McMenamins Edgefield*
August 25: London, UK - All Points East
Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
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