The Decemberists: Castaways & Cutouts [KILL ROCK STARS]

Why you'll love it

This Kill Rock Stars pressing brings back the Portland band's first full-length, with Carson Ellis's original cover painting. Pitchfork ranked it No. 96 among the 100 best albums of 2000 to 2004.

About the album

Colin Meloy writes songs the way other people write short stories, with ghosts, sailors, chimney sweeps and lovelorn legionnaires all getting their turn. Castaways and Cutouts was the first full-length from his Portland band, issued in 2002 on Hush Records and picked up by Kill Rock Stars a year later.

"Leslie Ann Levine" opens with a haunting tale of a ghost, "Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect" sweeps along, and "July, July!" is a jaunty, accordion-laced romp. "The Legionnaire's Lament" and "Grace Cathedral Hill" show off Meloy's wordy charm, and "California One / Youth And Beauty Brigade" (which gives the album its title) closes things with a sound clip from Archangel, a film by Winnipeg's own Guy Maddin. Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query and Ezra Holbrook fill it out with pedal steel, Hammond and upright bass.

Under the Radar placed it at No. 89 in its top 200 albums of the 2000s. Carson Ellis has painted every Decemberists cover since, which beats our record for keeping one illustrator on the books by roughly two decades.

Also at Kops: more The Decemberists on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Kill Rock Stars (cat# KRS397), a reissue of the 2002 album.