- Record Label: Capitol
- Release Date: Jan 20, 2015
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Jan 26, 2015What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World explores a much wider range of topics than their previous literature/storyline-bound themes could have possibly covered, and the result is hands down the most emotive release of The Decemberists’ career.
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MagnetFeb 20, 2015Brave stuff. [No. 117, p.54]
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MojoFeb 2, 2015The Decemberists' seventh is unlikely to weaken their commercial pull. [Feb 2015, p.91]
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Jan 22, 2015The songs on What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, produced by long-time collaborator Tucker Martine, are more intimate and personal than some of the early Decemberists narrative songs.
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Jan 20, 2015What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World is one of the indie-rock band’s most enjoyable and lively efforts in recent memory.
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Jan 20, 2015On the whole, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World strikes a note of pop concision and maturity, building on what worked on “The King Is Dead.”
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Jan 20, 2015Maybe because Meloy is now a published author (he's penned a trilogy of popular children's books), his songwriting wit seems to have grown sharper and less showoff-y.
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Jan 20, 2015While retaining the warmth and intelligence that has served them so well thus far, What a Terrible World… finds the five-piece at their most wide-ranging.... A fine return.
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Jan 20, 2015This is very clearly the Decemberists, but with a new kind of focus in their songs and arrangements that makes it clear this album's sound is a result of creative evolution, not an offering to their newer, larger audience, and it's a sweet and sour wonder that rewards repeated listening.
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Jan 16, 2015What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World is scored through with the group's idiosyncracies--there's certainly no loss of identity here--but what there is, as well, is maturity, ambition and variety, all of which conspire to form the basis of a very fine indie rock record--and there's no strings attached to that qualification.
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Jan 16, 2015What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World maintains everything that makes the Decemberists so one-of-a-kind and vital.
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Jan 15, 2015It’s another fantastic, emotional album from a band taking heartfelt stock of where they’ve been and who they are.
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Jan 15, 2015[Singer Colin Meloy's] ability to write hooks is still as strong as ever, and the narrative prowess he has always made absolute use of is ever stirring.
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Jan 14, 2015The album is a collection of songs from a band at the peak of their powers having their cake and eating it too.
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Jan 13, 2015The band are renowned for (occasionally controversial) storytelling, with lyrics artfully crafted, stretching their old English vocabulary like the most wordy of literature students; this is still evident but it’s generally less adventurous.
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Apr 9, 2015What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World isn't a concept LP or any kind of statement of higher purpose. Instead, it simply illuminates the Decemberists' inviolate strengths.
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Jan 20, 2015What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World is just another chapter in the already punctuated saga of one of rock’s best modern lyricists and his talented band.
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Jan 20, 2015What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World is the Decemberists' seventh album and sees singer and songwriter Meloy in peak form.
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Jan 20, 2015For now, it’s a record that gets better with each listen, a present-day anomaly. It’s the sound of a band unafraid of taking chances, and succeeding more often than not.
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Jan 20, 2015The melodies flow in relatively concise arrangements, which makes the album feel less weighty than earlier Decemberists' releases. At a minimum it could stand a little pruning. But several songs show a new, equally engaging side to Meloy's songwriting.
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Jan 21, 2015More than a decade on, this band is peeking out from behind the veil of obfuscation in an effort to stay relevant; they haven't totally abandoned the whimsy and fantasy, but they've toned it down--almost to save themselves.
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Jan 20, 2015The stripped-down songs on Terrible World--guitar-driven variations on God-fearing gospel ("Carolina Low") and Laurel Canyon country ("Lake Song")--are its best. After years of extravagance, dressing down turns out to be The Decemberists' strong suit.
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Jan 16, 2015The album is a much bigger sounding, musically diverse effort than its concise, uniform predecessor, featuring cellos, horns, and mellotrons, as well as a renewed focus on the versatile fretwork of lead guitarist Chris Funk
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Jan 7, 2015Terrible/Beautiful has some wonderful songs and does emit glints of growth, even if it is a tad long and flabbier than previous outings.
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UncutJan 6, 2015What A Terrible World continues to sharpen the band's sound. [Feb 2015, p.81]
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Jan 16, 2015While What a Terrible World ultimately feels much less belabored than either of the band’s last two releases, it also blends the personal and the fictional to form a less cohesive whole.
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Jan 13, 2015They’re not always entirely compelling, but it’s difficult to question Meloy & co’s sincerity in these Kumbaya moments, and that is the band’s true triumph here.
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Alternative PressJan 6, 2015The result is a record that is frequently too busy. [Feb 2015, p.90]
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Jan 6, 2015[They're unquestionably still the same band, but--just like many of their longtime listeners--they're all grown up now. [Nov/Dec 2014, p.63]
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Jan 20, 2015The failure of this album, in addition to being overlong and under-ambitious, is the idea that maturity should beget lazy, hammock songs.
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Feb 17, 2015Always professional, but rarely memorable, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, much like its fudge of a title, ultimately balances out as a fairly middling work.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 34 out of 43
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Mixed: 8 out of 43
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Negative: 1 out of 43
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Jan 30, 2015
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Jan 20, 2015
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Sep 6, 2018