With their two most recent albums, The Hazards of Love and The King is Dead, the songs flowed out of an overall theme. Entering the studio in May 2013, The Decemberists reversed that approach. Typically we book four or five weeks in the studio and bang out the whole record, explains singer Colin Meloy. This time, we started by just booking three days, and didn t know what we would record. There was no direction or focus; we wanted to just see what would come out. We recorded Lake Song on the first day, live, and then two more songs in those three days. And the spirit of that session informed everything that came after. 

From the soaring, bittersweet first single Make You Better , to the ruminating ballad Lake Song , and anthemic closer A Beginning Song , What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World establishes itself as the Decemberists most varied and dynamic work to date, both musically and emotionally.