The Decemberists Release New Single 'Burial Ground'; Announce North American Tour

The Decemberists have returned with the new single “Burial Ground,” marking their first new music in 6 years. With jangly guitars and swelling horns, the track is an instant singalong classic.

It's pop simplicity at its best, with lead-singer Colin Meloy's reliably clever lyrics propelling it forward and featuring The Shins' James Mercer on backing vocals. “‘Burial Ground' is in that time-honored pop song tradition, a paean to hanging out in graveyards,” says Meloy. “The melody hook came to me in a dream and I hummed it into my phone on waking. Most dream-songs are bad; this was the exception.”

The Decemberists will head out on an expansive North American tour with both spring and summer legs. The tour kicks off on April 30th in Kingston, NY at the Ulster Performing Arts Center and wraps up in August on the West Coast. Highlights include the Brooklyn Paramount Theater on May 3rd, 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. VIP pre-sale begins tomorrow,  Wednesday, February 7th at 10AM Pacific. The tour will go on-sale to the public this Friday, February 9th at 10AM local time. Full tour dates listed 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.”

Over the past 20 years 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.

Lead-singer 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.

Tour Dates:

- co-bill w/ The Head And The Heart^

-w/ Special Guest Ratboys unless noted with a “*”

April 30: Kingston, NY- Ulster Performing Arts Center

May 2: Boston, MA - Roadrunner

May 3: Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Paramount Theatre

May 6: Toronto, ON - Exhibition Place - Queen Elizabeth Theatre

May 7: Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE

May 8: Philadelphia, PA - The Fillmore Philadelphia

May 10: Washington DC - The Anthem

May 11: Durham, NC - Durham Performing Arts Center

May 12: Atlanta, GA - The Eastern 

May 14: Dallas, TX - Majestic Theater

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 

May 21: Chicago, IL - Salt Shed

May 22: Detroit, MI - Royal Oak Music Theater

May 24: Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium

July 12: Bend, OR - Hayden Homes Amphitheater^

July 13: Oakland, CA - Fox Theater

July 15: Los Angeles, CA - The Bellwether

July 18: San Diego, CA - Humphreys

July 19: Tucson, AZ - Rialto Theater

July 20: Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren

July 22: Santa Fe, NM - The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing

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

August 3: Troutdale, OR - McMenamins Edgefield*

Photo Credit: Holly Andres

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