Murder By Death is my favorite band. I know I have a lot of 'favorite bands' on here, but Murder By Death is easily the best band of the last twenty years. They're something like mix between Johnny Cash and Nick Cave, but they're known to dabble in other genres as well. And that's part of why they're so amazing, they can jump between styles so easily across their albums, and they always pull it off brilliantly.
They all met in college. Then they dropped out to pursue the band after realizing they were fucking awesome. Frontman Adam Turla was a religious studies major, and that subject matter repeats itself quite often in their music. They are not a religious band, and Turla actually stresses that. "It's meant to entertain, bring the feeling of sitting around telling ghost stories or something . . . This is just a story, there's no religious affiliation on our parts. So there's my disclaimer." Turla is also currently engaged to the cellist Sarah Balliet, which I am insanely jealous about because jesus shitfuck.
Murder By Death has never made a bad CD. I can't choose a favorite CD, or even settle with a tie. They are all equally amazing, but in different ways. The best part? They put all of them up online. For free. (Except one...) I'll give links after each of the CD descriptions.
2002
This first CD is nothing like any of their other albums. It's very dark, ambient, and post-rock. I wish I knew what this was about. My brother says the songs are simply about their favorite movies, but when I try to do research on it myself, I'm unable to find anything about it at all.
Listen to it here.
2003
Okay I lied, I do hold this album a little bit higher than their other ones. This was when they mastered their sound. This is the groundwork for everything to come in the future. Like all MBD albums (excluding the new one) it is a concept album. It's about the devil terrorizing an old western town. The best part is that it ends on a cliffhanger. The remaining townspeople are holed up in hiding waiting to die, and the song just builds up and builds up and builds up, and finally it ends right when they're about to storm out and try to take on the devil themselves. Oh, and there's zombies in it. Zombie children actually.
Listen to it here, and Adam Turla wrote a synopsis detailing what each of the songs mean.
2006
In Italian, the title means "Into the Mouth of the Wolf," which is a common phrase for 'good luck.' Each song tells a different story with a different character. The connecting theme is sin and punishment. From Turla's synopsis,
"While the last record is one long story, the new record is 12 different stories, all about sin, redemption, and guilt. Think of them like short stories in one anthology, each about a different character who has either committed acts that have harmed other people or are part of a bigger story where something like that has happened. There were several books that were influential in writing this album. Some of them were Dante's Inferno, Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, and Edgar Allan Poe's Fall of the House of Usher. Basically all these stories had issues that seemed relevant to the record and helped the creation of these songs."
This one isn't online.
2008
The fans are a little mixed on this one. I personally love it, and I think it rivals Who Will Survive. The criticism people have is that MBD decided to embrace their Johnny Cash side fully. Turla himself explains that he finally took some singing lessons, and his teacher told him that he has a very powerful deep voice, and he should try to sing lower. So he typically sang lower, and it's a bit more fast paced. That's it.
It's kinda-sorta a sequel to Who Will Survive. People started asking Turla if it was a sequel after it had been written, because the protagonists are pretty similar. From what I've gathered, it seems like he wasn't intending it that way at first, but then he just sort of went along with it once he saw what they meant. Personally, I think both stories are well enough on their own, so I don't view them as directly connected. Besides, Red of Tooth and Claw takes place in the 50s or something, so that would ruin everything Old West about its predecessor.
Turla says it's "Homer's Odyssey of revenge, only without the honorable character at the center." The protagonist is basically trying to get home to his woman. At the end, he discovers that she's been unfaithful to him. He nearly kills her, but then decides "the kid deserves a chance." Then her lover comes up and stabs him.
Listen to it here
2009
This was kind of released on the hush-hush, and I can't understand why. It's so fucking good, but it wasn't promoted at all. It's not really considered one of their main albums. Jeff Vandermeer wrote a book called Finch. I guess it's about some steampunk sci-fi junk or something, I don't really know, I haven't read it and I haven't read anything about it. He approached Murder By Death and asked them to make the book a soundtrack. And that's what they did. Pianist Vincent Edwards left after Who Will Survive to go back to school, but he returned temporarily to record this with them.
Listen to it here
2010
Good Morning, Magpie was released today. I honestly felt a bit iffy about it at first, until I realized what they were trying to do. Instead of embracing their Johnny Cash side, now they're sort of leaning towards Nick Cave. It's a little different from what they've done previously, but that's okay. They're trying new things, and Murder By Death is very good at trying new things.
Adam Turla spent two weeks camping in the wilderness completely alone. He did nothing but sit around all day writing songs, and this CD is the result. It's the first time they've released a non-concept album, the songs are entirely their own. It's a bit happier than their previous CDs.
Listen to it here and here's Adam and Sarah breaking it down track by track.
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