Obviously, bdb, you dug a little deeper than I - once the tracks were yanked off the blogs due to copyright violation, I stopped looking, don't want to be caught stealing from boys I actually support... I'll be buying the disc anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter that much. Rambling aside, my point is I only heard four or five tracks, so I don't have as much of the full picture as you seem to.
The first track I heard was 'The Perfect Crime #2.' My first thought upon hearing that was - Soul Meets Body. Not that the song sounds the same at all, but it does have a more produced electronic feel quite unlike their other stuff. Hello Capitol - maybe this is to be the radio-friendly single. The song is a bit meh for my taste. As for 'When the War Came' the opening guitar riffs kind of brought to mind Alice in Chains (!?!) (think Man in the Box), but I'm with you on the Evanescence reference. 'Sons and Daughters' sounded more classic Decemberists to me, I kind of like that one. I really would have like to hear 'Yankee Bayonet' - heard good things about it - but alas it's no longer to be found.
On the whole, I think this could be an okay record. I'm not exactly chomping at the bit based on what I've heard so far; I can wait for Oct. 3 no problem, but major labol bigwigs notwithstanding, I'm confident Colin Meloy and co. will not disappoint. I wasn't thrilled with what I first heard off DCFC's Plans at first either, but it turned out to be one of the 'gooder' 2005 releases for me when I gave it a chance.
