Quite a nice time for this thread to be resurrected, because I've been listening to a lot of The Decemberists for the last two or three weeks. I gotta say I absolutely adore The Hazards of love and The Crane wife. This is one of the first bands with strong folk influences that I decided to listen to, so that's what makes this music so fresh for me, but then again, there's a lot of prog elements on these two albums that sound familiar and that make me fall in love with the music even more. I also really enjoyed Castaways and cutouts, there are some breathtaking melodies on there. It's a very bleak record for the most part, reminiscent of the infamous In an aeroplane over the sea, which can't be a bad thing. I'm currently getting into The King is dead, which is a cool album, although not as experimental as their previous works.
Favorite songs so far, in chronological order: Odalisque, Here I dreamt I was an architect, Shanty for the Arethusa, The Bachelor and the bride, We both go down together, The Engine driver, On the bus mall, Crane wife 3, The Island (my absolute favorite), The Perfect crime 2, Isn't it a lovely night, The Rake's song (probably their only song that makes this emoticon justified:
), Annan water and so on, there's plenty of gems. I'm not including anything from their last album so far, although Rox in the box and This is why we fight are a lot of fun.