Claude says:The Decemberists' seventh album arrived in January 2015 as a deliberate scaling back — fewer ornate antiquities, less prog indulgence, more of the direct pop instincts they'd found on The King Is Dead. It debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and drew praise for its lively concision, though some critics wanted more ambition from a band known for sprawl. You grabbed it the month it came out and ran it hard through March 2015, coming back most to "The Wrong Year" and "A Beginning Song," though nearly a decade later it mostly sits on the shelf.