CD Review: Okkervil River
By Susan Pugh on Sep. 03, 2008
By Blair Amberly
ARTIST: Okkervil River
ALBUM: ‘The Stand Ins’
LABEL: Jagjaguwar
GENRE: Indie rock/pop
REVIEWER RATING: 4.5 out of 5
A recent photo of Okkervil River has the group staring through the camera, holding handwritten signs that read:
“There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world.”
Musically, Okkervil River’s newest album, “The Stand Ins,” abundantly distributes this light.
“The Stand Ins” is considered the sequel to Okkervil River’s excellent 2007 album “The Stage Names,” which placed the Austin-based band on a more national scale. Their newest endeavor finds them expanding on the anthemic pop sounds and intimate story themes that have become associated with the band.
The album’s opening track, “Lost Coastline,” finds lead singer Will Sheff lamenting the difficulties of keeping a band together. He sings, “Every night finds us rocking and rolling on waves wild and white / where we have lost our way / but no one will say it outright.” The song’s modular instrumentation, driving bass-line and continual build up sounds like the best from the Strokes.
Okkervil River’s members have become masters of taking the best parts of older records and combining them to make beautiful, expansive pop music.
Lyrically, Sheff is one of today’s better songwriters, crafting deep mini-novels through four-minute narratives. “The Stand Ins” juxtaposes recognizable, melancholy themes from ex-lover relations, personal insecurities and facing life after pop stardom against energetic horn-lines, driving drums and uplifting piano chords.
Sheff shows the self doubt of an ambitious front man in the album’s piano-led ballad, “On Tour with Zykos.” His words float above the music, “I was supposed to be writing the most beautiful poems / and completely revealing divine mysteries up close / but I can’t say that I’m feeling that much at all at 27 years old.”
With a sound this large and lyrics so directly honest, expect “The Stand Ins” to make several of this year’s best-of lists.
Amberly operates Speakertree Records in Lynchburg
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