Standard Edition

Product Description
The Decemberists have announced their new album The King Is Dead (Capitol Records, EMI). The album--a set of 10 concise, country-based songs--marks a deliberate turn towards simplicity after the band's wildly ambitious and widely acclaimed 2009 song-cycle The Hazards of Love. Produced once again by Tucker Martine, The King Is Dead features special guest appearances by Americana luminary Gillian Welch on seven tracks and legendary R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck on three tracks.

The King Is Dead showcases the ways in which The Decemberists--Colin Meloy, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query, and John Moen--sound just as glorious in simple, stripped-down compositions as they do on the elaborate structures that have defined their work for years.

Meloy points out, however, that creating straightforward, unadorned songs can be at least as hard as building complicated musical epics. "For all my talk about how complex those records were, this one may have been harder to do," he says. "It's a real challenge to make simple music, and lot of times we had to deliberately hold off and keep more space. This record is an exercise in restraint."

The album was recorded in a converted barn at Pendarvis Farm, an 80-acre estate of lush meadows, forest, and Mt. Hood views outside of Portland, and it was the concept of the barn--as recording space and as attitude--that informed the making of The King Is Dead. "We wanted that ethos," he says. "That was the color we wanted the record to have."

To Meloy, in some ways The King Is Dead also represents his own musical journey coming full circle. "Over the last eleven years or so, since I moved to Portland, I feel like I've been mining mostly English traditions for influence", he says. "I guess I've kind of come back to a lot of the more American music that got me going in the first place - R.E.M. and Camper Van Beethoven and all these bands that borrowed from more American traditions like Neil Young and the Byrds."

"Sometimes I kind of miss the epic-ness of the other albums," he continues, "but it's nice to get all of the information across in three minutes. It's like going from reading a novel to reading a bunch of short stories."

1. Don't Carry It All
2. Calamity Song
3. Rise To Me
4. Rox In The Box
5. January Hymn
6. Down By The Water
7. All Arise!
8. June Hymn
9. This Is Why We Fight
10. Dear Avery

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049OSQ18/?tag=imwan-20

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Deluxe Edition

Product Description
Deluxe CD/DVD of "The King Is Dead" includes the 10 track album plus "Pendarvia", a 30 minute documentary DVD on the making of the album. Featuring the band in the studio with special guest Gillian Welch.

CD
1. Don't Carry It All
2. Calamity Song
3. Rise To Me
4. Rox In The Box
5. January Hymn
6. Down By The Water
7. All Arise!
8. June Hymn
9. This Is Why We Fight
10. Dear Avery

DVD
1. "Pendarvia": a 30 minute documentary DVD on the making of the album

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049OSQ1I/?tag=imwan-20

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Super Deluxe Edition

Product Description
LIMITED EDITION Super Deluxe version of "The King Is Dead" includes the 10 track CD, a 72-page book with photographs by Autumn DeWilde (Beck, The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and illustrations by Carson Ellis. Also includes the "Pendarvia" DVD - a 30 minute documentary on the making of the album with studio footage of the band and special guest Gillian Welch.

CD
1. Don't Carry It All
2. Calamity Song
3. Rise To Me
4. Rox In The Box
5. January Hymn
6. Down By The Water
7. All Arise!
8. June Hymn
9. This Is Why We Fight
10. Dear Avery

DVD
1. "Pendarvia": a 30 minute documentary DVD on the making of the album

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BIY4PY/?tag=imwan-20

The Decemberists working on album with REM's Peter Buck
REM guitarist reveals he's been recording with the band in Portland

June 30, 2010
http://www.nme.com/news/the-decemberists/51791



The Decemberists have been recording their new album with the help of REM's Peter Buck.

The band are currently working hard on their sixth album in a barn on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon and have recently been joined by the guitarist to write three new songs.

REM HQ reports that the album is slated to appear in February, although The Decemberists are yet to confirm a release date.

"The secret to Peter Buck's inimitable 12-string guitar playing? He uses fingernails of ancient mummified monarch children for picks," The Decemberists Colin Meloy recently wrote of the recording sessions on Twitter.

The album is being produced by Tucker Martine.

Nice. I heard some tracks of the Crane Wife, in a record store and was so impressed I bought the album on the spot. I'll give this one a go when it comes out.

Bump: added finalised product images and tracklistings to the first post.