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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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The Crane Wife
by The Decemberists
'Crane Wife' marks the literate, Colin Meloy-led band's major label debut.
| LABEL: |
Capitol |
| RELEASE DATE: |
03 October 2006 |
| DISCS: |
1 disc |
| GENRE(S): |
Indie, Rock |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
The Onion (A.V. Club)
The songs brim with melodic ideas, but the album never overwhelms, because Meloy doesn't try to pack every minute with words and hooks.
100
Tiny Mix Tapes
The band's most ambitious, mind-blowing, and best record yet.
100
Delusions of Adequacy
The Decemberists have always had a flair for the dramatic, but it's refined and realized more than ever on their amazing new album The Crane Wife.
100
musicOMH.com
Their best album to date.
92
ShakingThrough.net
The Crane Wife is an album that nicely fits into the Decemberists' universe and has roots in earlier works, but sounds -- and hangs together -- better than any of them.
90
Urb
This is an amazing, innovative, storytelling record that takes you on [a] fantastic, fun trip. [Oct 2006, p.118]
90
Neumu.net
The Crane Wife is an impressively realized song cycle.
90
Billboard
Another extraordinary Decemberists album.
90
The New York Times
As a sustained effort, it represents the band’s sharpest and most satisfying work, and one of the most accomplished albums of its kind this year.
89
Austin Chronicle
The Crane Wife could be the best Robyn Hitchcock album made in several years; the lyrical marriage of whimsy and death bear the fruits of a master class led by the former Soft Boy.
84
Pitchfork
Winsomely balancing frivolity and gravity, the Decemberists assemble an oddball menagerie of the usual rogues and rascals, soldiers and criminals, lovers and baby butchers-- but they've got a lot more tricks up their sleeves than previous albums had hinted.
83
E! Online
[The Crane Wife] not only matches past pop glories, in most cases, it tops them.
83
Entertainment Weekly
The jarring faux-metal riffage of "When the War Came" exposes Meloy's limits, but several of these studies in heartbreak and homicide rank among his most moving. [6 Oct 2006, p.68]
80
NOW Magazine
Oddly, the unconventional sequencing and measured pace of the album make the fragmented mess hold together quite well.
80
Blender
The most tightly hook-larded, colorfully produced, listenable Decemberists record to date. [Nov 2006, p.138]
80
Alternative Press
The Crane Wife isn't automatic for the people yet, but it's far from green. [Nov 2006, p.188]
80
Spin
The best-sounding Decemberists record to date. [Nov 2006, p.103]
80
Playlouder
There are enough pinnacles of musical achievement married with subtle storytelling to justify the scale of this album.
80
The Guardian
It is all as self-consciously stagey as a Wes Anderson movie - too arch and florid to really engage the heart, but bold and wondrous entertainment none the less.
80
PopMatters
While the sound of this record is different from previous releases, it is only ever-so-subtly-so—and it just might be better.
80
Under The Radar
The Crane Wife is no sell-out, retaining and even expanding their eccentricities, spinning more of Meloy’s beguiling characters and engrossing stories into their fourth straight, stellar full-length. [#15]
80
Uncut
A real grower. [Feb 2007, p.73]
77
cokemachineglow
Meloy’s ever-multiplying prog-rock ambitions are well on their way to swallowing him whole, but for now he seems to be comfortable enough as a guy writing sweet folk pop songs alongside ever-shifting song suites and polite hard rock.
75
The Phoenix
In their music... the Decemberists are more confident and willing to stretch out than ever before.
70
Rolling Stone
There's a kick in the way song after song masks his darkish vision in elegantly hooky arrangements whose sonic signature owes more to folk rock than to prog or musical theater. [5 Oct 2006, p.68]
70
Q Magazine
[It] could easily have been a staggeringly pompous exercise; instead, it's rendered intriguing by a liberated approach. [Feb 2007, p.99]
70
Slant Magazine
Certain listeners will declare The Crane Wife the best record yet from the Decemberists, but it’s still too inconsistent to be declared the masterpiece of which Meloy and company are capable.
70
All Music Guide
Some cuts, like the English murder ballad "Shankill Butchers" and "Summersong"... sound like outtakes from previous records, but by the time the listener arrives at the Donovan-esque (in a good way) closer, "Sons & Daughters," the less tasty bits of The Crane Wife seem a wee bit sweeter.
70
Magnet
Ambitious, risky and occasionally rambling, this is a song cycle best absorbed in a start-to-finish listen. [#73, p.93]
70
Hartford Courant
It makes for compelling listening, even if you're not always sure what, exactly, is going on.
67
Stylus Magazine
Tempting as it may be to assume that beefing up their sound would have automatically made the Decemberists markedly better, the truth is that these strides may have at least partially come at the expense of the things that always made the band so singularly compelling.
60
Prefix Magazine
Most of The Crane Wife consists of rehashes of Decemberists staples and by-the-books, cookie-cutter indie pop that runs the gamut between pleasant enough ("O, Valencia!") and barely tolerable ("Summersong").
60
New Musical Express
Sometimes you wish Meloy would just put away his studied thesp-schlock and say, "Man, I'm sick of singing about Victorian peasants. I got dumped once. I want to write about that..." [27 Jan 2007, p.31]
The average user rating for this album is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 116 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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