Colin Meloy from the Decembrists is a raconteur and a wit and a very absorbing songwriter as is pretty evident two songs into this compilation of live numbers. He’s also a very honest performer, including his self-confessed worst song ever (‘Dracula’s Garden’). Meloy doesn’t have the most appealing voice in the world (occasionally God bless him he sounds like Brian Molko from Placebo) and it's just him and his twangy acoustic guitar for 18 tracks, but he’s got heart and does something that songwriters are meant to do but have somehow forgotten about – he writes songs that are actually about stuff (like what it would be like to be an architect on ‘Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect’). So Colin Meloy doesn’t just write random rhyming couplets, he actually has things to say, and on that basis alone he deserves four out of five.

Key Track: ‘The Youth and Beauty Brigade‘