The Decemberists are back, and have shared details of a brand new album called ‘As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again’. Check out the proggy new single below.
Revealed today (March 19), the new LP marks the band’s ninth studio album, and first since taking a six-year hiatus.
Set to be structured as a double album, ‘As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again’ was produced by lead-singer Colin Meloy and Tucker Martine, and is set to feature a variety of star-studded collaborations with the likes of The Shins’ James Mercer and R.E.M’s Mike Mills.
It is set for release on June 14 via YABB Records (Thirty Tigers), and the band have today shared the intriguing new single – a 19-minute-long prog rock epic titled ‘Joan In The Garden’.
“‘Joan in the Garden’ has been kicking around as an idea since the ‘I’ll Be Your Girl’ sessions,” said Meloy of the inspiration for the track. “I got into a Joan of Arc kick after reading Lydia Yuknavitch’s beautifully batshit novel The Book of Joan. I wanted to make my own version of Joan — but the song that came was as much about the creative process as it was about the actual woman, about angelic visitation and creative visitation and the hallucinogenic quality of both.”
According to a new press release, ‘As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again’ is not only set to be the longest album that The Decemberists have shared to date, but is also looking to be their most empathetic and accessible.
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“It’s 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,” it read.
“This, Meloy will tell you proudly, is the best Decemberists album—perhaps even the ultimate realisation of 22 years of work. ‘As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again’ rings with the urgency and ardour of right now, maybe more than ever before.”
The announcement also comes following the band making their return last month, and teasing a new album by dropping the single ‘Burial Ground’.
Find the full tracklist and album artwork below. Pre-order the album here.
The ‘As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again’ tracklist is:
1. ‘Burial Ground’
2. ‘Oh No!’
3. ‘The Reapers’
4. ‘Long White Veil’
5. ‘William Fitzwilliam’
6. ‘Don’t Go to the Woods’
7. ‘The Black Maria’
8. ‘All I Want Is You’
9. ‘Born to the Morning’
10. ‘America Made Me’
11. ‘Tell Me What’s on Your Mind’
12. ‘Never Satisfied’
13. ‘Joan In The Garden’
As well as the new album, The Decemberists are also planning to head out on an expansive North American tour throughout the spring and summer. The tour kicks off on April 30 in Kingston, NY at the Ulster Performing Arts Center and wraps up in August on the West Coast.
Meloy and co. will also be appearing at All Points East in London on August 25. Visit here for US tickets and here for UK tickets.