The King is Dead, So Sayeth the Decemberists

While they may call Portland home, we feel like the Decemberists are an important part of our amazing Pacific Northwest aural cavalry. Long have we awaited a new album. Actually, we were anxious for a new album somewhere around the 100th listen of Hazards of Love (so, about a week after it was released?). Then, with bated breath, we received an email today containing exciting news. The announcement of their next installment of musical magic has come my friends! They officially proclaimed today that their upcoming release will hit stores on 01/18/11. Here's what they have to say about it:

"...[W]e, The Decemberists, get ready to heave unto the world our latest concoction of songs. Instruments were played, vocal cords strained, and many a New Seasons sandwich was consumed in inclement weather, despite it being late spring. In the end, a full LP-worth of songs was collated to make a record.

I suppose you'd like to know the title of the record and when it comes out, this new offering of Decemberist songs. Well, wait no longer: the record will be called The King Is Dead and will be available on January 18th, 2011. That's 1/18/11. If you take away the slashes, that reads 11811. What does that mean? Must you ask? Clearly it is a snowman surrounded by a colonnade of waving banners.

But this is obviously a snowman of no small importance. Perhaps he is the king of the snowmen, returned from far afield to reclaim his rightful mantle, which had been usurped by some lesser snowmen and women. Or maybe he's been laid in state, which would give this oblique album title the slightest tinge of a greater meaning, rather than being just something artful someone thought up, which is the fashion nowdays."

As if we aren't dying to have it in our hands enough already they teased us with the track listing :

1. Don't Carry It All
2. Calamity Song
3. Rise to Me
4. Rox in the Box
5. January Hymn
6. Down by the Water
7. All Arise!
8. June Hymn
9. This is Why We Fight
10. Dear Avery

Could they make us drool over a nearly empty bowl any more? The anticipation is seriously killing us. They throw a little bone though, you can download the first single from The King is Dead on their website. Which apparently only consists of this page at the moment. So much for getting juicy details.