washingtonpost.com
Decemberists, Taking The Chill Out of the Air
Thursday, October 30, 2003; Page C07
When it comes to rock, Colin Meloy has a few disadvantages. First, he looks like a graduate student in creative writing. Second, he is (or was, anyway) a graduate student in creative writing. But Tuesday on the Black Cat's backstage, Meloy -- who writes and sings for Portland, Ore., folk/pop upstarts the Decemberists -- demonstrated that an arts degree need not automatically disqualify one from a career in the arts.
Oh, Meloy strives for insufferableness. He much prefers the 19th century to our own, and, if his lyrics are any guide, he harbors a very un-pop interest in Victorian child labor practices. Furthermore, he has no discernible sense of humor.
But there's no debating Meloy's knack for writing irrepressibly catchy songs. Tuesday, the five-piece band played songs from its two full-length CDs along with a very apropos -- given the crowded conditions onstage and in the audience -- cover of Squeeze's "Up the Junction."
Highlights included the Belle and Sebastian-flavored "The Soldiering Life," a rendition of "The Gymnast, High Above the Ground" that featured some taut-as-a-high wire upright bass work by Jesse Emerson and a chorus as giddy-making as the view from any trapeze, and a very Pogues-like "The Chimbley Sweep," which may just be the sprightliest song ever written about abject wretchedness. But the showstopper was the dramatic "I Was Meant for the Stage," during which the band kicked up a ruckus and Meloy proved that, trapped inside that Dickens-loving exterior, there's a Rufus Wainwright trying to get out.
-- Michael Little
