Front Page Reviews & AIR

Even though Okkervil River’s stiflingly melancholy Black Sheep Boy (2005) was one of my favorite albums of the 2000s, for some reason I chose not to check out their next two albums The Stage Names and The Stand Ins.  Maybe it was because Black Sheep Boy so perfectly captured the heartrending despair of (what must have been) an awful break up, even going so far as to explore the accompanying dark – even murderous – rage that isn’t typically discussed in polite company.  And if lead singer and songwriter Will Sheff was going to go any further down that line I didn’t necessarily want to go there with him.  But conversely, if he backed off and pulled away from the brink, then that would be a disappointment, too.  I thought the balance between emotional rawness and exquisite songcraft that Black Sheep Boy managed to strike would be almost impossible to recreate, and so I guess I didn’t bother to see if they had.  And maybe that was just plain lazy of me.

"For Real", from the 2005 album Black Sheep Boy

In any event, rejoining the band for their latest release, I Am Very Far, was a bit like reconnecting on Facebook with an old friend, one you had known only briefly but had shared a particularly intense experience with.  In a way, you feel like you know them, but given the brevity of your previous connection and the time that has passed since you last saw each other, you wouldn’t be able to make any kind of an accurate prediction of what they’re up to now.  They could be anywhere for all you know: married with three kids in Cincinnati or on a six month backpacking tour of India.  Okkervil River doesn’t seem to be in either of those places.

My introduction to the material from I Am Very Far was watching Okkervil’s pre-release performance of the song “Rider” on The Late Show with David Letterman.  They showed up with an 11-piece band (Letterman’s typically deadpan post-performance remark was, “Seriously, think about making some cuts.”) and rocked their way through the performance with an abandon reminiscent of the best of Black Sheep Boy.  The song is also a good introduction to the unique sonic combination that populates most of the album, which could best be described as Phil Spector meets The Smiths.  “Rider” contains nods to the Spector-produced “Be My Baby” (even copping the signature drum beat for the chorus) and the Letterman rendition – which included drums, bass, 3 guitars, a piano, bells, handclaps, and a cello – was nothing if not an attempt to recreate Spector’s “Wall of Sound.”  But Sheff’s raggedly emotive voice, which to me typified “indie vocals” for a while there in the mid-2000s, keeps the song sounding fresh and slightly dangerous, as if there is the possibility the whole thing might come unhinged at any moment.

The album itself kicks off with the bluesy mid-tempo rocker “The Valley”.  In my experience, the phrase “bluesy mid-tempo rocker” is almost always synonymous with the phrase “boring as hell,” but “The Valley” manages to avoid that pitfall thanks to spot-on production (which features a deliciously biting snare drum), an infectious lyrical cadence, and Sheff’s relentlessly foreboding voice and lyrics, which enter darkly and evocatively:

Watch the sun switching in the sky off and on

Where a friend stands bleeding on the late summer lawn

A slicked back bloody black gunshot to the head

He has fallen in the valley of the rock and roll dead

However, the second song, “Piratess”, reveals the album’s frustrating inconsistency, as Sheff’s voice meanders its Morrissey-esque way through a rather boring melody, awash in more than a few 80s homages.  “Rider” kicks it up a notch before the energy dips again for the mediocre “Lay of the Last Survivor”.  To the album’s credit, though, enough care has been put into the production and arrangements that even these misses are still listenable.  “White Shadow Waltz” sounds like an excellent idea – Syd-Barrett-era-Pink-Floyd imbued with a modern sensibility.  And though its execution sounds only partially complete, it remains an interesting listen due to the inspired production, which includes string arrangements, Dick Dale surf-guitar chord formations, and exploding gun-shot snare fills.

“We Need a Myth” takes the 60s homages to their logical conclusion, featuring lush Lieber & Stoller string arrangements, pop piano flourishes, prominently placed maracas, and four key modulations.  And thanks to the way Sheff’s soulful vocal delivery ties it all together, it works - in much the same way Queen’s exploitation of pop clichés works, thanks to Freddie Mercury’s sincere vocal commitment.  “Hang from a Hit” eases off on the gas pedal while maintaining the momentum, brilliantly revisiting the Stax/Volt soul ballad motif (complete with the horns and all), and sprinkling it with Sheff’s endearing vocal idiosyncrasies.

Unfortunately, the song quality drifts again for the stretch run.  “Show Yourself” sounds like another incomplete idea.  “Your Past Life as a Blast” borrows its opening vocal cues from The Beatles’ “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” and lingers on them for far too long before opening into its more interesting second half (though even then, it can’t seem to shake its annoyingly repetitive melody).  “Wake and Be Fine” is equally repetitive, while “The Rise” shoots for the same magic as “We Need a Myth” and “Hanging from a Hit”, but doesn’t succeed as completely.  It would better be described as whimsical or self-indulgent than soulful or inspired.

There is a lot of worthwhile stuff here, enough to make me want to go back and check out their last couple of albums, but I Am Very Far remains inconsistent to the point that it’s ultimately unfulfilling.  Perhaps, if Sheff had devoted some of the energy evident in his seamless production to the task of writing equally seamless songs, that wouldn’t be the case.  It is, admittedly, a lot to ask.  But thanks to Black Sheep Boy, I know Sheff is capable of delivering the complete package.  With Okkervil River, asking for more is as much a compliment as it is a critique.