Usually, when an NPR critic dubs a band literate and charming, it immediately has its cool credentials revoked and its live shows relegated to the assisted-living circuit. But the Decemberists are fucking literate and charming, and even if the Portland-based quintets taste for the literary sometimes comes off as effete overreaching (see The Soliders Life, wherein frontman Colin Meloy deploys the words pantaloons and dungarees as if pointing to his creative-writing degree; we believe you, dude), the charm remains intact, like a secret between friends. If the latter simile sounds like its lifted from a Meloy lyric sheet, please forgive me, but his often fantastical stories (hes part balladeer, part narrative poet), underpinned as they are by melancholic-symphonic instrumentation, are downright infectious. And, yes, charming. Also on Thursday, Jan. 31. KEVIN CAPP
Jan. 30-31, 2008
