(2020)The Decemberists – Live Home Library Vol. I: August 11 2009, Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak, MI


Review:
The Decemberists release “Live Home Library,” a new series of live releases via the band’s label YABB Records (Youth and Beauty Brigade). The series begins with the December 4 vinyl release of Vol. 1, which presents an August 11, 2009 performance of their acclaimed full-length concept album The Hazards of Love recorded live at the Royal Oak Music Theatre in Michigan. Vol. 1 was mixed by the album’s original co-producer and mixer Tucker Martine. For their 2009 tour following the release of The Hazards of Love, the band-singer, songwriter, and guitarist Colin Meloy, guitarist Chris Funk, keyboardist Jenny Conlee,bassist Nate Query, and drummer John Moen-was joined by featured vocalists Becky Stark and Shara Nova (formerly Shara Worden) singing their respective roles from the album. “The Decemberists came armed to the teeth for their album’s live premiere,” Rolling Stone wrote in their review of the band’s debut performance of the album in Austin that year. “The Hazards of Love is unashamedly over the top in its dreams and execution. And at SXSW, The Decemberists nailed it that way. Their opera is ready for the road.” “Since who-knows-when, we Decemberists have been sitting on a treasure trove of live recordings, shows over the course of our career that we have recorded for reasons long lost to time,” says Meloy. “We figured now, with a constitutional crisis looming, a viral pandemic spreading, and a global climate rapidly becoming uninhabitable, this would be a *perfect* time to wade through those recordings and pick the very best ones to release upon an unsuspecting world. More volumes will follow, hopefully touching on every era of the band’s 20 (nearly 21)-year long career.”





Tracklist:
1. Prelude
2. The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle the Thistles Undone)
3. A Bower Scene
4. Won’t Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
5. The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)
6. The Queen’s Approach
7. Isn’t It a Lovely Night?
8. The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid
9. An Interlude
10. The Rake’s Song
11. The Abduction of Margaret
12. The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing
13. Annan Water
14. Margaret in Captivity
15. The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)
16. The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)
17. The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)


Media Report:
Genre: indie-folk, indie-rock
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits