The Decemberists, the literate indie-rock band from Portland, Ore., have always had something in common with the Smiths. Mostly it was in the heaving sighs and poetic tendencies of frontman Colin Meloy. But the band’s latest record, “I’ll Be Your Girl,” opens with a miserablist incantation: “Oh, for once in my life, oh, could something go right?” It brings Morrissey, master of the big let-down, immediately to mind.
There’s an art to being bleak, doing it in such a way as to actually cheer up listeners as opposed to making them wallow in despondence. Some of that is up to the audience. But Meloy and the Decemberists have always had a slightly maudlin sense of humor, a worldview that makes them cousins to artists like Edward Gorey.
The music on the band’s latest fuses strands of British folk revival, sea shanties and the robotic pulsations of ‘80s synth-pop. Thoughts of self-harm are always in the air with the Decemberists, but so are singalongs and vaudevillian stage style. In this case, Meloy has said that the Trump era has created a shared experience of looming apocalypse for the band and much of their audience. Everyone has their own way of coping.
The Decemberists perform at College Street Music Hall, 238 College St., New Haven, on Friday, June 8, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $49. collegestreetmusichall.com.
