Okkervil River - Stage Names
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Okkervil RiverBrand: Baker & Taylor
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2007-08-07
Music Label: Jagjaguwar
Soundtracks:
- Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe
- Unless It Kicks
- Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene, A
- Savannah Smiles
- Plus Ones
- Girl In Port, A
- You Can't Hold The Hand Of A Rock And Roll Man
- Title Track
- John Allyn Smith Sails
Free Music Notes for Stage Names
Free Music Review: It was your heart hurting
Hit: 5 Stars
Some bands recycle their sound from album to album, until they implode into a creative vacuum.
And some bands refine, rework and polish their talent, turning out increasingly brilliant, full-blown music. Fortunately Okkervil River fits into the second category, amping up the sound of their previous opus "Black Sheep Boy" and giving it a rollicking, lovable rock sound... without losing the freakfolk/alt-country edge.
It opens with a tight little riff, and Will Sheff moaning, "It's just a bad movie, where there's no crying... It's just a life story, so there's no climax/No more new territory, so pull away the IMAX." It unfolds into a blazing, thumping, piano-riddled rock song that sweeps the listener in its wake, just before letting you drop into quiet interludes.
So what's it about? Basically, about a person who sees their life as a movie, but is being told that it isn't all about them: "No fade in: film begins on a kid in the big city/And no cut to a costly parade -- that's for him only!/No dissolve to a sliver of grey -- that's his new lady!".
It's a strong start, and it's a good springboard to what comes next: sizzling rockers, bouncy indiepop flavoured with horns, plinky piano and "doo-doo!" vocals, smooth twinkling ballads, and rollicking alt-country. It doesn't sound that cohesive, but the songs do mesh well -- they all have a wistful, expansive quality that seems to spill over their edges.
Lots of people encountered Okkervil River by their 2005 album "Black Sheep Boy," but "The Stage Names" just evolves and expands the same kind of music. It's a bit less angular, a little more introspective, and a lot catchier -- it hasn't gotten any less poignant, but the melodies are rollicking fun.
They embrace the rock'n'roll with lots of driving riffs and great drumming, but the few songs when they don't do much else -- like "Unless It's Kicks" -- are a bit ordinary. The songs really shine when the core instruments are mingled with others: sweeping violins, xylophone, maracas, horns, plinky piano and a ticking clock, all wound around the guitar and drums like coloured ribbons.
And Sheff's voice is one you either love or hate -- either you'll hate it for being so waily, or love it for its passion. And the man knows how to pen beautiful songs ("I am all out of love... and not above letting a love song disappear/before it's written"), full of jumbled symbolism, painful loneliness, and jagged imagery ("She rises up like a yawn/grips my heart like a claw/splits apart like a jaw, like an eye...")
"The Stage Names" is a new high for Okkervil River -- brilliantly expansive alt-freakcountry songs, with bittersweet songwriting and fun tunes. Brilliant.
Stage Names Poster
This record dynamites the moss-covered castle walls of 2005's "Black Sheep Boy" to let in the glaring sun. Riddled with characters real and fake, with the relics of high culture and the crumpled up trash of low culture, "The Stage Names" is a cinemascopic take on the meaning of entertainment in the modern world. Reverberant with echoes of Motown snap and girl group pop, redolent with ripe whiffs of dirty rock 'n' roll, shining with the shimmy of Bo Diddley, with the shimmer of the Velvets, with the swagger of the Faces, and with a glittery sprinkling of cheap perfume to disguise the stink, "The Stage Names" is a relentlessly paced and ruthlessly thrilling journey.On their debut album, Don?t Fall in Love with Everyone You See, Okkervil River invoked Otis Redding's "I?ve Got Dreams to Remember" in a late-album sweep of drama. Here they take the closer, "John Allyn Smith Sails," and spin languidly into verses from "Sloop John B," with tattered, ragged horns invoking Neutral Milk Hotel. Singer Will Sheff re-asserts his primacy as the best mid-range, lyric-wobbling howler as he pleads, "I feel so broke up, I wanna go home." But you don't have to wait until the ninth track to get the point: Okkervil River has grown yet again, weaving mandolin twang with pump organ wheeze as they name-check the Byrds, "99 Luftbaloons," and Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," all in the first two minutes of "Plus Ones," and then embracing sad-sack heartbreak amidst pedal steel on "A Girl in Port," a mere four tracks after the distortion-laden guitar riffage of "Unless It's Kicks." Hyper-literate, musically accomplished, and keenly aware of dramatic sweep, Okkervil River continues fulfilling the promise inherent not only in each of their prior albums but also in the enthused throes of passion marking Okkervil's colleagues, Arcade Fire and Decemberists and Bright Eyes. A brilliant work, The Stage Names. --Andrew Bartlett
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