Decemberists give academic edge to folk-tale metaphors

Scanning the mostly fresh, mostly young and largely bookish faces crowded into the Troubadour on Wednesday, you easily might have thought a comp lit seminar was about to break out. And that’s kind of what happened -- albeit much more tuneful than anything you’d expect in a UCLA classroom.

With its artful folk-pop and fancifully spun tales of ill-fated seafarers, legionnaires and chimney sweeps, Portland quintet the Decemberists has evolved into an American version of Scotland’s Belle & Sebastian, as charming as it is literate.

Singer-songwriter Colin Meloy, looking the part of a guitar-toting grad student, was a genial presence as he led the band through a frequently jaunty set, starting with the shameless crowd-warmer, “Los Angeles, I’m Yours,” a highlight of last year’s album “Her Majesty.”

His mini-epics, distilling the moral twists of a Tolstoy or a Melville into snappy song form, were, of course, often metaphors for more mundane matters of love and life, but also stood on their own for pure story value.

The show culminated with a new 18-minute suite titled “The Tain,” that went from a heavy blues riff to a Weill-like waltz and back -- something that might appeal to fans of Belle & Sebastian and Jethro Tull.

Yes, it can get a bit precious at times, even with the encore-closing cacophony in which Meloy smashed not a guitar, but a mandolin. But it’s a worthwhile price for an entertaining evening of smarting up rather than the standard dumbing down.