The switch to a major label can be the kiss of death for an indie band, and when the Decemberists announced it'd be making the move from Kill Rock Stars to Capitol Records, it worried many of its fans.

Instead, The Crane Wife ends up being the band's most progressive and ambitious album yet.

The Decemberists did not have to sacrifice any style in the Capitol debut--The Crane Wife is musically progressive, instrumentally dynamic and lyrically garrulous.

The production is at least as good as it has been on previous albums, and overall it's the band's most cohesive effort to date.

The Crane Wife gets its name from a Japanese fable about a poor man who finds an injured crane on his doorstep (in this case, "with an arrow in its wing").

He nurses the bird back to health and releases it. Soon after, a beautiful woman appears at his door, with whom he falls in love and marries.

To help their financial situation, the new bride offers to weave silk clothing, with the caveat but her husband must never watch her while she does it.

He agrees, and the clothes sell well, so he forces her to make more and more, as his wife's health wanes.

Greedily (and expectedly), he one day peeks in to see her secret, only to find a crane at the loom, plucking itself and weaving the feathers into clothing.

The crane notices him, flies away and never returns.

The album portentously begins with The "Crane Wife 3," telling of the story's ending first ("The Crane Wife 1 & 2" comes eight tracks later in an 11-minute epic).

The second track is equally as elaborate -- a 12-minute, three-song mini-suite entitled "The Island," replete with a Yes-style organ solo.

In past albums, the actual music often seemed to merely serve as an ambient backdrop for Colin Meloy's collection of lush narratives.

On The Crane Wife, however, the band has matured, weaving the instrumentation in with the lyrics and threading the individual songs into an album.

In its maturation, though, the Decemberists seems to have lost some whimsicality.

You won't find a "Mariner's Revenge Song" or a "The Chimbley Sweep" on this album -- not that either would fit particularly well.

The Crane Wife is probably too refined -- and too subdued -- to feature ostentatious horns or accordions.

A Decemberists album wouldn't be complete without Meloy's hallmark literate storytelling, and The Crane Wife does not disappoint.

"Shankill Butchers" is a cautionary tale about the real-life Shankill Butchers, a group of Irishmen, who abducted and viciously killed some 30 Roman Catholics in the 1970s.

"When the War Came" tells of a pact made by Soviet botanists to protect their flora during the German siege of Leningrad.

With lyrics referencing dirigibles, fontanelle and asteraceae, it's enough to besot even the most discriminating of linguaphiles.

That none of the tracks truly stand out speaks more to the strength of the album as a whole than it does to the weakness of any individual song.

Don't let its subtlety fool you -- The Crane Wife is as engaging as any Decemberists album yet.

On its major label debut, the band has evolved enough to stay interesting, but not so much as to alienate its existing --and growing-- fan base.

I kind of have to wonder --What were we worried about?

Grade: A-