The Decemberists will release their seventh studio album,What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, on January 19, 2015 on Rough Trade Records in the UK & Europe and January 20 on Capitol Records in the US. Produced by the band and long-time collaborator Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket, Neko Case), it is The Decemberists’ first full-length studio album since 2011’s The King Is Dead, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in America and contained the GRAMMY®-nominated single “Down By The Water.”

While officially on hiatus for the past few years, The Decemberists – comprising Colin Meloy, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query and John Moen – nonetheless remained visible. The band released a live album, We All Raise Our Voices to the Air, contributed a song to The Hunger Games soundtrack,appeared in animated form on “The Simpsons” and performedon the season six finale of “Parks and Recreation.” Meloy, the group’s lead singer and principal songwriter, immersed himself in writing Wildwood Imperium, the third book of The Wildwood Chronicles, the best-selling middle-grade fantasy-adventureseries that he created with his wife, illustrator Carson Ellis.

What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World is The Decemberists’ most varied and dynamic work, both musically and emotionally. 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.