The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy Is Fine With the Long Wait for The Group’s New Album, But Isn’t So Sure His Dream Is Still to Write With Morrissey

variety.com:

Ilana Kaplan Whenever the Decemberists have released an album, Colin Meloy has wondered if it would be their last. Perhaps fans may have felt similarly after the release of their 2018 LP “I’ll Be Your Girl,” as the Portland, Oregon-spawned indie icons found themselves in the midst of its longest gap between records.

But there were several factors at play in the delay: a pandemic, fits and starts of songwriting, and Meloy’s other creative projects.

It was a break from The Decemberists, but the prolific songwriter didn’t think fans were starved for music considering their robust (now) nine-album discography. “It’s a natural pattern that we’ve fallen into,” Meloy tells Variety over the phone from Portland. “We can spend a little more time between records.” Over the past 22 years, The Decemberists — now Meloy with bassist Nate Query, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, guitarist Chris Funk and drummer John Moen — have never shied away from evolving, tackling folk laments, fantastical epics, synth-rock numbers and anthems with political undertones, flanked by historical and literary references.

Their latest project, “As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again,” is a culmination of the band’s history — a double album with prog-rock overtones centered on an imagined version of martyr Joan of Arc (“Joan in the Garden”), a quixotic tale about a character inspired by a 16th century Brit and John Prine (“William Fitzwilliam”), a jangly folk ditty circling impending doom (the counterintuitively catchy “Burial Ground”).