In a distant land that has outlawed coyness, Decemberists songwriter Colin Meloy is both king and minstrel, entertaining himself as he dispatches his characters. Meloy has left little room in his lyrics (one part Selling England By The Pound, one part Fairport Convention, two parts Herman Melville) to do anything but scale back and try to move off the obituary desk. When he does, the new Picaresque (Kill Rock Stars) delights. “The Engine Driver” chugs downhearted toward the Driver 8 Memorial Station, the buoyant “On The Bus Mall” is Pet Shop Boys gone to seed, and “The Sporting Life” mourns the absence of testosterone rather than departed paramours. With a lavish booklet and production by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla, Picaresque glows with it-band imminence. But the album refines rather than revamps the Decemberists’ approach; it’s the brightest panel of a triptych, not a new exhibit. Whether part of the Walla-of-sound production or in reaction to it, Meloy’s voice—an instrument of vague ignominy pitched somewhere between David Sedaris and a character on Nickelodeon cartoon series Rocko’s Modern Life—is louder here. Its childlike literalness lets you accept the self-conscious anachronisms of syntax and setting, and its broadness dares you to laugh at those qualities instead. More believable but less amusing is the rest of the band, which, despite plenty of space in the arrangements, clomps through Walla’s cavernous mix.

MAGNET found Colin Meloy waiting for the Pequod and nursing a headache after his solo tour earlier this year.

What prompted your solo tour, and how did it go?
It went really, really well. I decided to do it because this was principally all I did when I first moved to Portland. I was doing weekly solo shows even after we started the Decemberists. That was what I did, and I did the band on the side. I hadn’t played solo in a couple of years. It was sparked from an idea the Dashboard Confessional guy had about a singer/songwriter tour. That fell apart, but I decided to do it anyway. It was a sold-out tour. It reminded me of what I like about playing solo.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed trying to reproduce the records live?
Even in recording the albums, we’ve been aware of our limits. But we do have five—now six—able-bodied musicians onstage. And nobody really wants to hear a pure reproduction of the records, anyway. Our very first tour, we went out as a four-piece, and we got a lot of good reviews for that. There’s always a certain level live that’s added to the songs. That makes up for the odd string or tympani part. I’ve seen Belle And Sebastian a few times, and they’re amazing, but I don’t think of them as a very good live band because they do an amazing job of re-creating the records.

Were you conscious of this being a good moment—in part thanks to Belle And Sebastian and similar bands—to start a narrative-song-driven group?
A lot of the songs were moving in the direction of a more narrative scope. I wasn’t thinking it was the right time. It was purely a way of challenging myself. While I was writing more elaborate narratives, I was seeing a marked decline in the number of people coming to the shows. This was before the label picked us up, when we were just a local band. There were influences—Shane McGowan and Morrissey and the oft-cited Neutral Milk Hotel and Belle And Sebastian.

You sold an EP of Morrissey covers at shows during the solo tour. Were you concerned about covering an obvious touchstone?
That’s what got me into music. Morrissey and Robyn Hitchcock—I just have a really strong knowledge of their bodies of work. I have an attachment that’s indelible, so to cover their songs is a lot of fun for me. There’s a reason they are touchstones. I don’t think of it as being rote.

Now that the group is well-established and you’ve taken that break from school, what’s your five-year plan?
I think we’re going to continue to write, perform and record music. This is what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve thought about doing a solo record, too, but it’s too soon to tell. I’d also like to try my hand at writing a musical, actually. I almost had a chance to—we were in line to write the music for a Peter Pan musical, but funding fell through.