The Decemberists have announced their new album, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, out on June 14th. The band returns with their 9th studio album after a 6 year hiatus, with a remarkable double album produced by lead-singer Colin Meloy and Tucker Martine and featuring guest appearances from The Shins’ James Mercer and REM’s Mike Mills.

To mark the occasion, The Decemberists have released a new song- a 19 minute prog-rock epic titled “Joan In The Garden.”

Speaking on the track, Colin Meloy says: ““Joan in the Garden” has been kicking around as an idea since the ‘I’ll Be Your Girl’ sessions. I got into a Joan of Arc kick after reading Lydia Yuknavitch’s beautifully batshit novel ‘The Book of Joan.’ I wanted to make my own version of Joan — but the song that came was as much about the creative process as it was about the actual woman, about angelic visitation and creative visitation and the hallucinogenic quality of both.”

As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again is not only the longest Decemberists album to date (and their first intentional, proper double-LP, split into four thematic sides, no less) but also their most empathetic and accessible, its 13 songs like semaphores of mutual recognition for our fraught times and faint hopes. The existential slog and capitalist vexation of “The Reapers,” the opiated delusion and jumbled jingoism of “America Made Me,” the guileless tenderness and absolute surrender of “All I Want Is You”: As It Ever Was is the redemptive testament of a band finding new communal hymns by revisiting several old modes at once. This, Meloy will tell you proudly, is the best Decemberists album—perhaps even the ultimate realization of 22 years of work. As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again rings with the urgency and ardor of right now, maybe more than ever before.

The Decemberists will head out on an expansive North American tour with both spring and summer legs kicking off on April 30th.

Tour Dates:
– co-bill w/ The Head And The Heart ^
-w/ Special Guest Ratboys unless noted with a “*”

April 30: Kingston, NY- Ulster Performing Arts Center – SOLD OUT
May 2: Boston, MA – Roadrunner
May 3: Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount Theatre – SOLD OUT
May 6: Toronto, ON – Exhibition Place – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
May 7: Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE
May 8: Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore Philadelphia
May 10: Washington DC – The Anthem
May 11: Durham, NC – Durham Performing Arts Center
May 12: Atlanta, GA – The Eastern
May 14: Dallas, TX – Majestic Theater
May 15: Austin, TX – Bass Concert Hall
May 17: St Louis, MO – The Pageant
May 18: Milwaukee, WI – Riverside Theater
May 19: St Paul, MN – Palace Theatre
May 21: Chicago, IL – Salt Shed – SOLD OUT
May 22: Detroit, MI – Royal Oak Music Theater
May 24: Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
July 12: Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater^
July 13: Oakland, CA – Fox Theater
July 14: Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether – SOLD OUT
July 15: Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether
July 18: San Diego, CA – Humphreys
July 19: Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theater
July 20: Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren
July 22: Santa Fe, NM – The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing
July 23: Denver, CO – The Mission Ballroom
July 24: Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater
July 26: Missoula, MT – Kettlehouse Amphitheater
July 27: Spokane, WA – Spokane Pavilion
July 29: Vancouver, BC – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
July 31: Seattle, WA – Woodland Park Zoo Amphitheatre – SOLD OUT
July 31: Seattle, WA – Woodland Park Zoo Amphitheatre – SOLD OUT
August 3: Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield*
August 25: London, UK – All Points East

Pre-order the album HERE.