Okkervil River - The Stage Names
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Free Music Notes for The Stage Names
Free Music Review: A really impressive indie-rock style album
Hit: 4 Stars
I know that these guys were one of the indie darlings in 2007 but I didn't get into this album until 2008. However, I am glad that I did. The album is a great mix of songs of varying tempos, and the 9 songs on it feel like just the right amount.
The first two songs are really great up-tempo numbers, with the second song, Unless Its Kicks, the real highlight of the album. The lyrics are fantastic, with each song telling a unique story and repetitive lyrics and choruses typically avoided. The writing is very clever this way as it really sounds more like stories rather than the typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus routine.
The slower songs are great as well. Savannah Smiles is a song about reading his daughter's diary and lamenting the innocence lost with youth. It seems like a wise-beyond-one's-years type of song as I'm assuming that the author isn't actually old enough to have the teenage (or older) daughter he describes in the song.
Plus Ones is a clever song that took me a few listens to realize what was going on. They've cleverly woven songs from the 70s onward into this song's lyrics. Essentially, songs such as 99 Luftballoons, 7 Chinese Brothers, 50 Ways to Leave your Lover, and others, get the "plus one" treatment. Very clever the way it was turned into a story.
Title Track is the only dud as I see it on the album. There are a couple of minor drawbacks. While I'm not concerned about foul language, there were just a couple of instances throughout the album that prevent me from playing it when the kids are around, which is a shame because there's so much to get out of the album otherwise. When they're just a little bit older and I don't care what they hear I'll certainly play it around them, then.
The album ends with John Allyn Smith Sails which re-works the Beach Boys' Sloop John B in a very energetic way and makes for a great ending to a great album.
Free Music Review: Great Album
Hit: 5 Stars
I've been listening to this one quite a bit and it really gets better each time. This album is strung together amazingly, with unique and thoughtful lyrics. They can play fast, slow, loud, soft... it all sounds great and original. "Our life is not a movie...", "Unless it kicks"... and "Plus 1" are standout tracks; all are gems though. This is a must-have.Free Music Review: Trying not to turn off
Hit: 5 Stars
Okkervil river's new album has an urgency , a sense that the music must come out, must roll forward in exactly the order that it does, that herald's all great rock albums. Though there are undeniable folk tones, the rock albumness of it starts and ends with `Unless it Kicks', the best rock song since `Power's Out'.
'Unless it kicks' has that forcefulness, that sense, of this, this right here, being the purpose of creating and appreciating music. It has that epic rock track intensity that often finishes with a wordless yell (such as is found in `Will you smile again for me' or `Freebird' or `Let the devil in').
What does justify making or consuming music if not the kicks it provides, if not the fictions that pick us up from down, that distract us, that hum through our blood, that even if you know they're a lie, you still give your love, you still believe? And to hear the lead singer tell us that this blind love is what breaks his heart the most, and that this love of the music, which may seem unrequited, isn't, is fully reciprocated in all the joy of the music; and that together, us and the music created by the band, we WILL try not to turn off, and we WILL not be alone in believing a lie about our grace, about our reprieve.
Plus Ones and Girl in Port are both excellent slower songs, the lyrical references on Plus Ones are particularly appealing, the best example coming in this run of verses towards the end.
51st way to leave your lover
Admittedly, it doesn't seem to be as gentle or as clean as all the others,
Leaving its scars.
All in the after hours of some Greenpoint bar
I told you, I can't listen, baby,
'bout the 4th time you were a lady and how your forthrightness betrayed a secret shyness
Stripped away by days of being hailed as "your highness"
And what's new pussycat, as you were once a lioness;
They cut your claws out
Kitten, not everyone's keen on lighting candle 17, the party's done, the cake's all gone, the plates are clean
The chauffeur's leering from the cheerless mezzanine
And in just one year, this straight world could pay to see what they have been missing
Rhyming shyness/highness/lioness immediately followed by clean/mezzanine is pretty dope.
The lyrics, the sincerity and the depth of the last six tracks, provide a wonderful contrast to the three rollicking tracks that flow together at the top of the album.
Free Music Review: Unique but overrated
Hit: 3 Stars
Music: 3/10 Vocals: 4/5 Lyrics: 3/5 Production: 4/5
Total: 14/25: C+
Okkervil River made many top 20 lists in 2007. I had to check them out to see what the hype was. What I can say is that singer Will Sheff has a very unique voice and has a very good command of it. Half Morrissey, half Strokes may be a bit of a stretch but it gives you the right framework. I respect his vocal talents although I'm not all that drawn in by them.
The band is rather pedestrian. They are compitent enough but not good enough to write particularly good songs. A few mildly stand out but overall I easily keep this in the background without humming or tapping my foot. I would never want to actively listen to them. They range from light pop to folk. So, folk/pop/rock genre. At least they are unique.
So, perhaps the professional reviewers love this band because they really don't sound like anyone else and execute decently. But while I may agree with that, none of their songs engage me in any way so I really can't recommend it.
Free Music Review: By far the best
Hit: 5 Stars
I have to admit that I thought the Okkervil albums that preceded this one were shaky, wallowy and overly pretentious. It's like they were making music as if they were 20 year old veterans with a trackrecord which they didn't have yet. But they reached it now.
The voice is still shaky, but like Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst it's now under control and not a deviant anymore. The music is somewhat more polished without becoming too John Mayer. The lyrics are in order. They sometimes sound like Bright Eyes in emotinal musical outbursts and lyrics. There is also some Byrds-like country stylings that could also be seen as Shins-like or even Counting Crows (A Girl In Port)
With Sufjan Stevens they share a tendency to pit little classical orchestrations throughout the album without becoming symphonic.
The Beach Boys come back literally in the last song.
They have shed their youthful feathers and are now standing on their own, one of the best indie albums of 2007.