Despite their dark subject material, they’ve never been a group to take themselves too seriously, and never has Meloy’s tongue been jammed so firmly in cheek as on this collection of apocalyptic tunes.
I’ll Be Your Girl is the band’s most ambitious release since The Hazards of Love. Through the incorporation of electronic and synth elements, the group adds a new color to their palette and uses it excellently.
I'll Be Your Girl may not be an unquestionable expression of their glam rock influences or even be their best work, but it's nice to see The Decemberists have stepped outside their comfort zone and reached back a bit to reconnect with their daring and adventurous ways without losing their distinctive charm.
While Meloy's lyrics are sharply honed and evocative, it's this cavalcade of sounds that not only makes I'll Be Your Girl compelling, but distinctive among Decemberists albums.
Though it contains a number of experiments that don’t quite work, I’ll Be Your Girl offers tracks that point to a very exciting way forward for the band. Folk sensibilities and gold, old-fashioned acoustic instruments can play really elegantly and stirringly with electronic sounds, and there is a lot of potential if The Decemberists push further in that direction.
I’ll Be Your Girl is a welcome sign of a veteran band eager to experiment, but it’s also the first Decemberists album where the sounds are more interesting than the songs.
The Decemberists do a very particular thing – darkly ornate, literary-minded, self-consciously verbose Anglophile prog-folk-rock – exceedingly well, so well that you can't blame 'em for wanting to do something else. They do just that on I'll Be Your Girl, at least in parts, the upshot being, well, a re-affirmation of that particular thing they do exceedingly well.
On I’ll Be Your Girl, The Decemberists do a few things well, a few things poorly, and most of them acceptably and nothing more. The fact that it never goes completely off the rails is almost as disappointing as the fact that it never finds its footing or seems interested in doing so.
It’s quite a week for surprising new directions, though few are quite as unexpected as The Decemberists’ on I’ll Be Your Girl, which finds the folk-rockers employing electropop riffs influenced by Roxy Music and New Order. Who saw that coming?
They know who they are and what they like—and they may be the only band around who can make the New Wave sound old-timey.
I'll Be Your Girl would stand as a fine but forgettable work on its own, yet when compared to the pedigree of its predecessors, it's quite disappointing in every way.
It’s almost unsettling to watch a band that used to plan every single detail of their albums down to the letter suddenly begin to frantically hurl a load of disparate ideas at the wall and hope a few stick. If there’s a shift in The Decemberists’ identity on I’ll Be Your Girl, then that’s it. It doesn’t suit them.
Aiming for playful rebirth, the Decemberists instead land on cloying kitsch.
I really just wanna have dinner with you guys plz plzzz
The Decemberists have been an absolute delight to listen to, and even though some of their records later on don’t leave as much of an impact, they still have some unbelievably amazing material. Unfortunately with their most recent record, I do still think that it doesn’t leave as much of an impression on me but it’s not bad. There is actually one song that I think is amazing, and it’s the eight minute epic, ... read more
The Decemberists used to release some pretty gutsy and notable folk albums in the 2000s, like The Crane Wife and Picaresque, but now they kind of just sound like an average watered down indie folk band. I mean, it's not terrible, but it's not exciting like their old records are. It just feels very safe, which I guess is the best word I can use to describe it. Just the title alone, I'll Be Your Girl, was evident enough of this fact, even before listening to the album. It's not like the band's ... read more
On their eighth record, The Decemberists continue to be lost in a field of experimentation, this time with synthesizers and brief excursions into sounds popularized by others. Similar to their previous record, "What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World," "I'll Be Your Girl" fails to sustain a clear through line. Tracks like "Everything is Awful" and "We All Die Young" feel designed for any other band that is not the Decemberists. For me, the ... read more
Not one of their greatest albums but I still enjoyed it a lot. I can't wait until their next album
1 | Once In My Life 5:09 | |
2 | Cutting Stone 3:20 | |
3 | Severed 4:03 | 100 |
4 | Starwatcher 2:39 | |
5 | Tripping Along 3:35 | |
6 | Your Ghost 2:40 | |
7 | Everything Is Awful 3:22 | |
8 | Sucker's Prayer 3:28 | 100 |
9 | We All Die Young 4:01 | |
10 | Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes 8:15 | |
11 | I'll Be Your Girl 2:34 |