Pitchfork

Is this going to be a regular series? After releasing an EP of Morrissey covers last year, Colin Meloy has recorded a six-song covers EP of traditional songs originally arranged and recorded by 1960s folk troubadour Shirley Collins, again to tie in with a solo acoustic tour. Collins lacks the cache of Moz, but Meloy's not playing Devendra to her Vashti. Colin Meloy Sings trad. arr. Shirley Collins is no revival attempt; the purpose of this release appears simply to show Meloy's affection for these songs. As if undaunted by the prospect of reinventing well-known songs like "Everyday Is Like Sunday", he lovingly plays them with a little more humor and a lot more care, and as a result, the EP sounds like more of a direct extension of his day job than a mere tour souvenir.

Collins proves ideal to Meloy's treatment: During the 60s and 70s, she drew on traditional English music as well as contemporary folk to create a revered body of work. These six songs are so suited to Meloy's idiom that they rarely sound like covers. While I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend at least checking out her originals, Sings Shirley Collins doesn't require any knowledge of its source material the way Sings Morrissey did. That was a one-note release: Once the novelty of hearing an indie pin-up boy covering the ultimate indie pin-up boy wore off, that EP was archived on the CD rack, a gem for Morrissey and Decemberist completists alike but a curio for everyone else. But ...Sings Shirley Collins

has a leg up on its predecessor from the word go: Collins is Meloy's kindred spirit. Her sassy wives, errant wanderers, death-scared sailors, and duplicitous thieves could be the same vengeful mariners and lovelorn barrow boys who inhabit Decemberists songs.

Meloy fills these tracks out lovingly, eschewing the austere voice-and-guitar setting of Sings Morrissey for an arsenal of bells, banjo, electric guitar, and plucky percussion. The songs remain spare and the mood intimate, but the music feels less imitative and more inhabited. On opener "Dance to Your Daddy", bells ding a soft melody to echo Meloy's vocals, reinforcing the song's evocation of parental tenderness-- an obvious choice for the dad-to-be. "Charlie" is a little more upbeat, with a banjo bolstering the jaunty chorus. Carson Ellis, Meloy's girlfriend/partner and the artist behind the Decemberists' distinctive album covers and merchandise, makes a brief appearance as a spirited wife-to-be who throws her suitor's expectations right back at him: "I will marry you but I won't do your washin' or your cookin'," she sings, proving a perfect foil-- Cher to Meloy's Sonny.

Nothing else is quite as upbeat or as charming as "Charlie", as the album takes a slightly darker turn with the death song "Barbara Allen" (which Meloy, like Collins, pronounces "Barb'ry Allen"). A metronomic rimshot and a sharp electric guitar stomp out a death march, as if ticking away life's remaining minutes, while Meloy sings of love and mortality, bending up the end of his lines as Collins did nearly 40 years ago. "Cherry Tree Carol" continues that funereal pace, dragging a little. It probably doesn't help that Meloy replaces the burbling church organ of Collins's original with an electric guitar that glides around the song's firmament. As if losing energy, the final two songs are the EP's barest: "Turpin Hero" is a cautionary tale of thievery and trickery, and "I Drew My Ship" is a short a cappella number that might have worked better as the EP's opener, offering a friendly introduction to Meloy's re-creation of Collins' world. In fact, as well chosen as these songs are for Meloy's vocal range and persona, the sequencing does seem slightly off: Listening to these six tracks, I kept thinking I might rearrange them somehow, but of the many possible iterations of the tracklist, none that I devised seemed any better or worse than the official order. It's a quibbling criticism, but this puzzlement prevents the EP from fully realizing the seemingly ideal combination of singer and source. Nevertheless, Sings Shirley Collins is an enticing addition to what could become a very fruitful series.