#37.
Okkervil River - The Stage Names (1424 Points, 27 Votes)US Chart Position: #62
UK Chart Position: n/a
Charting Singles: n/a
Acclaimed music Ranking: #35 of 2007
SOMB Says: Upon hearing the first single and lead track from Okkervil River's The Stage Names, "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe," I told my brother it came off like a Counting Crows song -- very conversational with musical halts, multiple tempo changes, occassional yelps. He argued that it was Will Sheff's attempt at writing an Arcade Fire track -- epic buildup with crashing instruments, definitive peak, occassional yelps. I suppose what you hear and envision is open to interpretation...I sincerely doubt he sat down with the idea of emulating either group, especially the former.
Wordsmith, crooner, bar balladeer, rocker, performance artist and thief are the guises employed by Sheff in his band's most easily digestible full length album to date. Despite the glossy new production values the band has managed not to lose their emotional core. Over the course of The Stage Names we hear the players and their frontman inhabit a full cast and crew of characters -- poets, sailors, parents, lovers, and would-be directors. It's welcoming when an album can change it's own narrative voice and POV from track to track without turning into a distraction, or something...well, something as weird as Of Montreal. There's no "Lady Liberty" freakout on The Stage Names -- inner demons aren't released in brief instances or piercing moans this time around. Instead they're channelled into arrangements with more structure built to set up Sheff's phrasebending lyrics, lyrics which must be the highlighted excerpts from his tortured and tattered personal journal. This new tantric form of restraint does the band well. Much like the musical development (decline?) of contemporaries The Old 97's, slower tunes ("Savannah Smiles", "Title Track") seem to lack the honest simple beauty and heartfelt lyrics possessed by offerings from the River's back catalog; fortunately, and unlike developments with the 97's, the rest of the bar rocking catalog keeps it's beat ("You Can't Hold The Hand of a Rock And Roll Man", "Unless It Kicks"). It's worth mentioning that Will saves his greatest trick for the final two minutes of the album when he bravely steals "Sloop John B" from Brian Wilson and gives an improved version back to the folk music canon. Played at 11 it's postively chill inducing.
We force ourselves to compare artists to one another when recommending music (RIYL: good music!, and these people...), in this blurb alone I've likened Sheff to Adam Duritz, Win Butler, Kevin Barnes and Rhett Miller, and I specifically avoided the man most reviewers stand him up next to, Conor Oberst. Perhaps what Okkervil River were looking for with the The Stage Names was to find themselves under these masks of others. In disguise, behind this staged performance they've put together, maybe we're closer to discovering Will Sheff and his bandmates, who they are and just what it is they've been trying to tell us. -
Kmac Ranked Highest By: Northern Voice, tweed, suckered you (#4)
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