Blog: LocalCut

A new Decemberists album is a big deal round these parts—especially when said release has been rumored to be a "change in direction" record. Even with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck on board, though, early snippets from The King is Dead sounded more and more like a back-to-our-roots album for the literary, rustic Portland pop outfit than a true left turn. In any case, we thought that instead of taking the disc in as a whole—plenty of time for that later—we'd send ten writers (music and otherwise) to spend time with individual new Decemberists' songs ( over at NPR, where [...]