day one.

photo by cinnamon,,,

so this is my first ever blog post. i think it'll be a while until i find my blogging feet or whatever but for starters i'll just say hello and try and work out what i'm gonna be using it for.

basically i'll be posting whatever i'm enjoying at the time in the hope that other people can enjoy good things as much as i enjoy good things. cause good things are the best kind of things at the end of the day.

i'm thinking it'll mostly be music but expect ramblings on films, books, fashion and pretty much anything else i have an opinion on.

i'm probably doing this more for myself than others. call me selfish but there you go.

suppose i might as well give people something whilst i'm here, so i'll start with a band i was introduced to yesterday.

since last summer i've sort of lost touch with the whole indie scene. i mean back in the day i was a huge indie kid, and i obviously still love a lot of the stuff i was into back then, but after broadening my horizons over the last couple of years to stuff like hip hop and more electronic music, i've swayed more towards that sort of stuff and i'm sure a lot of quality bands have passed me by.

so anyway my friend sally brought round this new album by the decemberists, and its like i've remembered how to enjoy bands who play their own instruments again. they make these epic songs swooping between jaunty old-fashioned accordians and apocalyptic breakdowns that verge on heavy metal but with more pianos and actual singing. having only heard their newest album i can't really comment on their back-catalogue, but i've been told this is quite a new direction for them musically and much different from their earlier more folky sounding

material.

but this new album, hazards of love is put together reallllly well,

with all the songs flowing together like one big epic song, and this ties in with the running story of the album, "the tale of a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake" (yeah i used wikipedia to paraphrase.) i particularly love tracks 8 and 10, the wanting comes in waves/repaid and the rake's song, just so epic and darrrrk.

having only discovered this group yesterday, i can't really speak with much authority on them, so in the words of girls aloud i'll let the funky music do the talking:

download the album here

The Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love (2009)

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)

(for a synopsis of the plot of the album go here)