The Decemberists have announced a new EP entitled Travelling On, which is aptly set for release on December 14. This five track EP will continue on the same sonic path that the band traveled to on I’ll Be Your Girl, which utilized sonic influences from New Order and Roxy Music.
Travelling On will feature cuts that did not make I’ll Be Your Girl, that was released in March of this year. In addition to a vinyl release, other merchandise such as t-shirts that include the cover of this upcoming EP are ready for sale on the band’s website.
“Perhaps other bands would be content to rest on the laurels of another successful record released, another romp about the globe put to bed — BUT NOT THE DECEMBERISTS,” a post on the artist’s website stated. “This little bugger is a sharp twenty-one minutes of songs that were recorded during the I’ll Be Your Girl sessions but never quite found a home on the album those sessions produced.”
While the Decemberists began their career blending folk music along with indie rock, their latest releases focused on a more synth oriented sound. This sonic change, was also greeted with a more politically charged tone, that captured the current presidency of President Donald Trump.
“It celebrates the absurdity of our current predicaments,” the Decemerist’s frontman Colin Meloy told NME back in March. “I think it really is a reflection of my outlook immediately post the 2016 election, where there was immediately this onset of despair. Like real despair. Real depression, and then sort of climbing out of it. Seeing other people feeling the same way, similarly climbing out of their hole and just witnessing events as they came along, rather than with tears. “
In addition to the album’s discussion of politics, the singer also discussed the role of the current cultural and media landscape. These dystopian themes that discuss technology fit with the use of synth sounds, that emulate an era which utilized these synths as a view of the future.
“There’s a lot of disparity and I think that social media has definitely lent a hand to that. Cable news is depicting everything as if it were a boxing match. They’ve just pushed people into their own sides and getting all their information from Facebook or Twitter where they’re able to curate their own input,” Meloy explained further. “We are all living in these homogeneous little bubbles. Each one of us echoing and getting our own viewpoints thrown back at us. I think it’s sort of terrifying and then on top of that we have a President who’s playing into that, and is creating divisions. It’s terrible. It’s awful. It’s shitty.”
Back in August the group released a music video for “Sucker’s Prayer.” The track and accompanying video discuss a failed suicide attempt.
Later that year the band made an appearance at the City Folk Festival in a line up that featured David Byrne and Nick Murphy.
Traveling On EP
01 Down On The Knuckle
02 I Will Not Say Your Name
03 Tripping Along (Full Band Version)
04 Midlist Author
05 Traveling On
Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna
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