The Decemberists – “Burial Ground”

The Decemberists have returned with “Burial Ground,” their first new song in six years. They’ve also announced some new tour dates.

Tour Dates

04/30 – Kingston, NY @ Ulster Performing Arts Center
05/02 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
05/03 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount Theatre
05/06 – Toronto, ON @ Exhibition Place – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
05/07 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE
05/08 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia
05/10 – Washington DC @ The Anthem
05/11 – Durham, NC @ Durham Performing Arts Center
05/12 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
05/14 – Dallas, TX @ Majestic Theater
05/15 – Austin, TX @ Bass Concert Hall
05/17 – St Louis, MO @ The Pageant
05/18 – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
05/19 – St Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre
05/21 – Chicago, IL @ Salt Shed
05/22 – Detroit, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theater
05/24 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
07/12 – Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater ^
07/13 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
07/15 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Bellwether
07/18 – San Diego, CA @ Humphreys
07/19 – Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theater
07/20 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
07/22 – Santa Fe, NM @ The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing
07/23 – Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom
07/24 – Sandy, UT @ Sandy Amphitheater
07/26 – Missoula, MT @ Kettlehouse Amphitheater
07/27 – Spokane, WA @ Spokane Pavilion
07/29 – Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
08/03 – Troutdale, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield

Press Release

The Decemberists will head out on an expansive North American tour with both spring and summer legs. The tour kicks off on April 30th in Kingston, NY at the Ulster Performing Arts Center and wraps up in August on the West Coast. Highlights include the Brooklyn Paramount Theater on May 3rd, the Salt Shed in Chicago on May 21st and the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on May 24th. The band will return to their home turf, wrapping the tour in Troutdale, OR on August 3rd at McMenamins Edgefield. VIP pre-sale begins tomorrow,  Wednesday, February 7th at 10AM Pacific. The tour will go on-sale to the public this Friday, February 9th at 10AM local time. Full tour dates listed below.

For 20 years The Decemberists have been one of the most original, daring, and thrilling American rock bands. Founded in the year 2000 when singer, songwriter, and guitarist Colin Meloy moved from Montana to Portland, Oregon and met bassist Nate Query, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, and guitarist Chris Funk, The Decemberists’ distinctive brand of hyperliterate folk-rock set them apart from the start with the release of their debut EP 5 Songs in 2001. After making their full-length debut with Castaways and Cutouts in 2002, the band signed with Kill Rock Stars for the release of the acclaimed albums Her Majesty the Decemberists (2003) and Picaresque (2005), which was produced by Chris Walla. The 2004 EP The Tain – an 18-minute single-track epic – made the band’s grand creative ambitions clear.
 
Around this time the band’s permanent line-up fell into place with the arrival of drummer John Moen, and they made the unexpected leap to Capitol Records for their first major label album in 2006. Fans’ concerns of whether the band would alter their trademark sound quickly vanished when they delivered their most ambitious and audacious record to date in The Crane Wife, a song cycle produced by Walla and Tucker Martine (who would become a longtime creative partner) that added elements of ‘70s prog, hard rock and even quasi-disco to their palette. The album was met by wide acclaim from The New York TimesRolling StoneSPINStereogum, and was named Best New Music by Pitchfork.
 
Three years later, The Hazards of Love – a full-length concept album based on Meloy’s idea for a stage musical - was a Top 20 hit. In 2011, they topped themselves yet again with their first #1 album, The King Is Dead, which featured the GRAMMY-nominated song “Down By The Water.” After their 2015 album What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World, which included the #1 AAA radio hit “Make You Better,” The Decemberists changed up their sound and explored new approaches to making music on their eighth studio album I’ll Be Your Girl (2018) with producer John Congleton. NPR Music wrote “Every band needs to refresh and reconsider its sound sooner or later, no matter how sharp it's gotten over the course of a long career — even The Decemberists, a band whose records have always come bursting with verve... I'll Be Your Girl captures a collaborative spirit that keeps the band sounding vibrant and alive.”
 
Over the past 20 years The Decemberists have toured the world, performed at countless major festivals, and even founded Travelers’ Rest, a festival of their own curation in Missoula, Montana. The band has appeared on The Simpsons, collaborated with Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda, and released their own crowd-funded board game Illimat. Lead-singer Colin Meloy is also the author of The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid and the New York Times bestselling Wildwood Chronicles as well as two picture books, The Golden Thread: A Song for Pete Seeger and Everyone’s Awake. Meloy’s Wildwood Series is currently being made into an animated feature starring Carey Mulligan, Mahershela Ali, Angela Bassett, Jermaine Clement, Tom Waits and more.