Like him or loathe him, Colin Meloy has become one of the most distinctive songwriters of his era. Combining antiquated diction with lilting melodies drawn from UK folk rock and U.S. indie pop, his compositions are recognizable whether they're sung by Marianne Faithfull, Patti Smith, or anyone else. What stands out most from the Decemberists' near-decade together isn't the albums. Instead, it's the songs-- "Billy Liar", "16 Military Wives", "O Valencia!", "On the Bus Mall"-- that are the best showcases for the Portland band's lyrical indulgences and clever arrangements. The pop song, especially the kind that hovers around the three- or four-minute mark, has been the ideal framework for Meloy's explorations of prog rock, sea shanties, wake music, fanfares, and showtunes.
2009's The Hazards of Love was an especially egregious misstep. A concept album with an overarching narrative involving otherworldly lovers and forest-bound shapeshifters, Hazards was grandiose and mock-epic, but it evoked a world much more circumscribed than can be found in almost any of Meloy's individual songs. Most recently, The King Is Dead's abrupt change in style played as a retreat: a means of making amends to the same fans Hazards risked alienating. Impressively, though, the album's renewed emphasis on standalone tunes made Americana jangle sound like not only a natural detour for the Decemberists, but an inevitable destination. A few months later, the eight-song iTunes Session puts curious punctuation on its predecessor, with nice flourishes of fiddle from former Nickel Creek member Sara Watkins, but a tracklist that pulls from throughout the band's discography while skipping the high points.
The Decemberists fare better on iTunes Session when they play songs from the new album than when they travel back through their own and others' catalogs. "Calamity Song" may not be nearly as calamitous here as in its studio version, but the runaway ooh-ooh-oohs make for one of the EP's most unguardedly joyful moments. "June Hymn", meanwhile, is no "January Hymn", but the song's folksy ramble comes through more clearly in this slightly more stripped-down performance than it did on the LP. Still, King dud "This Is Why We Fight" is a dud again here-- further proof Meloy's examinations of military violence work only when he filters them through character and story (see also the genuinely affecting "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" vs. the pedantic "16 Military Wives"). And the band tries to salvage "The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)" by reworking it as a languid country lament, but while fiddle and weepy pedal steel reinforce the tragedy of the lyrics, the melody feels soggy, the performance a bit aimless. "Shiny", from 2003 debut EP 5 Songs, likewise rambles, though it's worth revisiting that early effort's "Oceanside" and "I Don't Mind".
The primary draw of iTunes Session is the pair of covers that act almost as its bookends. They're an uneven couple. The Decemberists effectively recast Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" as a country tear-jerker, but Meloy just can't muster the gravity to sell the song. Though Cohen's lyrical style is as stilted and heady as Meloy's, the elder songwriter's near-comical solemnity is a bad fit, especially considering what Meloy could've done with a tune by wryer Cohen contemporaries like Loudon Wainwright III or Randy Newman. Luckily, a locomotive-paced, countrified rendition of Fruit Bats' "When U Love Somebody" better suits the Decemberists' strengths. But it only makes you wonder how something like "The Engine Driver" might sound translated to a genre famous for songs about trains. In that regard, the EP's lackluster tracklist leaves iTunes Session seeming clunky and unrepresentative-- like it's not a full set, but an excerpt from a larger show.
