With their abstruse allusions and just-so arrangements, the Decemberists' albums often sound like they've been rehearsed and researched down to the last grace note. That's no knock — in fact, it's key to their appeal. But it's a pleasure to hear them cut loose on this eight-song EP, recorded live in an L.A. studio. They attack their back catalog with relish, jamming on jangly gems from this year's The King Is Dead, and breathing fresh life into older tunes. Best of all is a fiddle-sweetened cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" that suggests what the great Canadian might have sounded like if he came up in Appalachia.

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“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.