The Decemberists announced their ninth studio album, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again (14th June via YABB Records/Thirty Tigers) and share their new single ‘Joan in the Garden’
Six years ago, lead singer Colin Meloy and his bandmates delivered their last studio album, ‘I’ll Be Your Girl‘, which saw their sound stretch to more synth-dappled horizons. After a lengthy hiatus, their return arrives with a generous large splash–a double album, their longest album to date, featuring guest appearances from The Shins’ James Mercer and REM’s Mike Mills.
Produced by Meloy and Tucker Martine, the announcement is accompanied by a new single—a track that probably takes up a whole side of that vinyl package—the 19-minute ‘Joan in the Garden’, a transcendent offering we feel is worth the extra weight. In an age where we’re told that a lack of attention has meant that singles are getting shorter, delivering an epic track like this is a breath of fresh air and a kick in the teeth to the streaming algorithm.
Colin Meloy: “Joan in the Garden” has been kicking around as an idea since the ‘I’ll Be Your Girl’ sessions. 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.”
As well as being their longest, the album is also described as their most empathetic and accessible, its 13 songs like semaphores of mutual recognition for our fraught times and faint hopes. While they are not all the epic length of Joan in the Garden, the lyrical weight of the songs on As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again suggests this may be their best album to date.
Last month, they shared the contrasting Burial Ground, an LA sun-coated psych-folk-pop offering that suggests this album will not be short of sonic variety.
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again Tracklisting
- Burial Ground
- Oh No!
- The Reapers
- Long White Veil
- William Fitzwilliam
- Don’t Go to the Woods
- The Black Maria
- All I Want Is You
- Born to the Morning
- America Made Me
- Tell Me What’s on Your Mind
- Never Satisfied
- Joan In The Garden
The Decemberists will head out on an expansive North American tour with spring and summer legs. The tour kicks off on April 30th in Kingston, NY, at the Ulster Performing Arts Center and wraps up in August on the West Coast. The band will also be appearing at All Points East in London on 25th August.
Pre-Order / Pre-Save the album: https://orcd.co/aiewsiwba
See Upcoming Tour Dates: https://decemberists.com/tour