If you’re reading this you were most likely a theater kid or theater-kid-adjacent. Despite what the cowardly say there is nothing shameful about being a theater kid. You had a song in your heart and the need to be seen and heard, and maybe theater was the only thing other than a rock band you could participate in to indulge this need. And sometimes you’re The Decemberists who do both equally well. Like Fairport Convention on a bill with PJ Harvey, Picaresque is choked with riffs dressed in ruffles, and true to its name ricochets from story to story to scene to bloody scene. Suicidal lovers, vengeful mariners, spies, assassins, handwringing liberals and brimstone conservatives. They all crash together among 12 string guitar, organs and accordions, and the wails of sinking ships in the jaws of a whale. Gorgeous stuff with a body count in the hundreds.