King Is Dead: Deluxe Edition

DVD features 'Pendarvia' - a 30 minute short film documenting the making of the album

The new album The King Is Dead is set of 10 concise, country-based songs and marks a deliberate turn towards simplicity after the band’s wildly ambitious and widely acclaimed 2009 song-cycle The Hazards of Love. Produced once again by Tucker Martine, The King Is Dead features special guest appearances by Americana luminary Gillian Welch on seven tracks and legendary R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck on three tracks. The King Is Dead showcases the ways in which The Decemberists sound just as glorious in simple, stripped-down compositions as they do on the elaborate structures that have defined their work for years. The album was recorded in a converted barn at Pendarvis Farm, an 80-acre estate of lush meadows, forest, and Mt. Hood views outside of Portland, and it was the concept of the barn— as recording space and as attitude—that informed the making of The King Is Dead.