The Decemberists, “Mistral”
I wonder what’s next up for the Decemberists. The last three albums haven’t been very much like each other - The King is Dead is like R.E.M., What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World is like Hazards of Love but without a theme, and I’ll Be Your Girl is like a bad record. How will they mix it up next time?
Man or Astro-Man?, “DNI”
Man or Astro-Man? were insanely productive in the early to mid-90s, cranking out basically two albums a year before arriving on Touch and Go records, where the recording budgets got a little shinier but the sound remained the same. The productivity slowed a bit, they were only doing an album a year at this point, but these years are probably a little more reliable, so this record (the first of them) is probably a good starting point.
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