O Valencia!

I first heard "O Valencia!" on a compilation. The Decemberists are part of this year's lineup at Osheaga and they put out a new album a month ago. For all those reasons, I decided to get one of their albums. I didn't feel like getting their newest album, though, so I got The Crane Wife. Having heard only "O Valencia!" from them, I thought they would be a cliché indie band, but "O Valencia!" is actually the happiest song on the CD. (It's not that happy, actually. I just checked the lyrics... As a music listener, I don't pay that much attention to lyrics.) The music gets quite tragic at times, such as on "The Island" and on "When The War Came". "The Island" is one of the album's epic, multiple-parts, 10-minutes songs, the other one being "The Crane Wife 1 and 2". "The Perfect Crime 2" is a surprising and catchy song. In the second part of the album, things get a bit slower, with "Shankhill Butchers" and "Summersong". All in all, I'm glad The Decemberists aren't as cliché as I thought they would be.