Okkervil River

After that, when you become an OkkRiv megafanatic, get Black SHeep Boy next (it's great).

The EPs are mostly quieter and less, i dunno, "folksy" than "Red" or "Kansas City".

Hehe nice, I actually bought it on ebay just after starting this thread.

black sheep boy is a great version though.

New song/album announcement last night:

http://consequenceofsound.net/2011/01/11/watch-okkervil-river-debut-new-song-album-title-on-fallon/

I don't know how popular these guys are here, but I'm excited.

seems like they don't have much of a following here but i love "black sheep boy" and "the stage names", so i'm game for this

I'm excited, been a huge fan of the last several releases.

I'm also a big fan, I ran this poll a couple of years ago:

Our Life Is Not a POLL or Maybe: Okkervil River Studio Albums

There was some discussion on another thread about the album they did as Roky Erickson's backing band. My feeling being that whatever deficiencies that record had were down to him rather than them.

yeah I really like what they've been up to for the last few albums — dude's songwriting just keeps on getting stronger

new song doesn't blow me away but it doesn't really need to, y'know? definitely gonna check out the album

He's also one of the best frontmen I've ever seen. Man he knows how to work an audience.

I'd never heard Okkervil River so I just downloaded Don't Fall in Love, and I can't seem to get past the opener, "Red". What a stunner!

Black Sheep Boy is one of my favorite records of the last decade, and though the last couple were slight steps down, they haven't put out a bad record yet. Quite excited for this one. Also glad they took a little bit of a break between records this time; Stand Ins had some A+ material, but definitely felt rushed compared to its predecessors.

Wasn't it recorded at the same time as The Stage Names, though?

It was, and at times it felt like leftovers. Not as bad as Sujfan Stevens' post-Illinois clearinghouse The Avalanche, but still not the band at their freshest.

excited! still love this band.

Track-by-track preview of the new record here, supposed to be less "polished" and more "chaotic" than the last two:

http://www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-new-okkervil-river-track-track

The thing is, it's the way they walk the line between polish and chaos that makes them so ace in my view. Still, we'll see.

sounds okay to me, I could go for a little more chaos

New album The Silver Gymnasium on the way. Says Will:

On our last record, I Am Very Far, I was musically trying to both satisfy and to challenge myself; for The Silver Gymnasium, I wanted to write a record that was very much about trying to reach out to other people and show them a good time. I’d always wanted to write a record that was more based in autobiography, that spoke about my memories of how I felt and how the world around me seemed at a specific moment in the past, and it felt like a good time to finally do it. I thought John Agnello would be the perfect choice as a producer, not only because I’ve enjoyed his more recent records with people like Kurt Vile and Dinosaur Jr. but also because John is a much more old-fashioned producer who was actually involved with a lot of the music I listened to growing up, everything from Cyndi Lauper to John Mellencamp to the Outfield’s “Your Love.” John even worked on Born in the U.S.A. and was loitering around in the background during the making of Tom Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes; so he was actually present while they were making a lot of the music that inspired the kid version of me to want to be a musician and that inspired The Silver Gymnasium in general. Our goal with The Silver Gymnasium was to work quickly and decisively, to make a “band” record and not a fussy studio creation, and to make the most fun record we could possibly make.

- Will

The Silver Gymnasium tracklist:

1). It Was My Season
2). On A Balcony
3). Down Down the Deep River
4). Pink-Slips
5). Lido Pier Suicide Car
6). Where the Spirit Left Us
7). White
8). Stay Young
9). Walking Without Frankie
10). All The Time Every Day
11). Black Nemo

The last one took a while to grow on me but I really love it now, hoping for good things with this new one

tour also (obviously).

i LOVE this band, thanks for the new album info. it has been a while so i'm quite happy for some new stuff.

wtf

http://www.thesilvergymnasium.com/

kewl

LP is really good, by the way. Great return to form after the last one

So yeah, this album is still great.

I hope (assume) this is the appropriate place to post this: http://okkervilriver.com/goldenopportunities

thanks!

Yesterday, on a bit of a whim, I finally sought out the Tolstoya short story these guys took their name from, & I must say..... it was not at all what I expected!

in retrospect, "Okkervil River" the story has much less in common with "Okkervil River Song" than it does with the Stage Names/Stand-Ins twofer

I've tried so hard to love this band. I feel like if they'd put out about 50% fewer songs that were 15% better, then maybe.

Just give Black Sheep Boy one attentive spin from start to finish.

some of the music these guys have put out is so, so good. i just keep forgetting to check for new stuff

still listen to the stage names once every couple of months

Really loved them for a while, circa Stage Names and Stand Ins. There are definitely some knockout songs - "Unless It's Kicks" forever and ever please. But after while his bellow starts to grate. I burned out on most of the stuff I like, and the last couple of albums have not registered with me at all.

I kinda loved I Am Very Far despite the maddeningly inconsistent production but the last album was such a drag

i actually liked the last album a lot more than the previous few idk

though really they're a band with a lot of great songs but only one great album (black sheep boy)

Yeah last album had some catchy songs. Seemed very focused. I Am Very Far felt like a band trying to make lightning strike but didn't wanna put the work into the songs

barack sheep boy

I prefer The Stage Names to Black Sheep Boy, tbh

Damn, both of those Obama playlists are excellent

Stand Ins > Stage Names > Black Sheep Boy >>> First couple albums >>>>>>>>> Last two albums :'(

Never really got BSB but enjoy it a lot everytime I give it a listen, listen to Stand Ins once a month, love every track - especially "Singer Songwriter" and "Calling and Not Calling My Ex" which is also a great christmas song. "Girl in Port" makes me come back to Stage Names again and again. And "Savannah Smiles".

Bought IAVF too but was so dissappointed - dislike the production and songs seem underdeveloped/overthought. Gave Gymnasium a quick listen but it's not for me - feel like Sheff is stretching/trying too hard, where the songs on Stand Ins sound like they wrote themselves. Love his prosaic/novelistic lyrics on SN/SI.

Anyway, I'm sure Okkervil will return with GREAT material at some point.

i think Black Sheep Boy is their masterpiece with Down the River of Golden Dreams being a very close second. also very much in love with Stand Ins and The Stage Names. the others are not even close to those four albums.

BSB : one of the best album covers ever.
I love it.

"Hanging By a Hit," "Show Yourself" and "Lay of the Last Survivor" are some of my fave OR tunes. I finally grew to love "Your Past Life As a Blast" after a while, too - it did that breezy vibe better than anything on the most recent album, imo. Also loved the IAVF-era b-side "Walked Out On a Line," a v creepy song that would have been a better closer than the one on the album.

Timely revive for me, I've been listening to this band a lot lately. "Mermaid" is another great song (the A-side of "Walked Out on a Line", right?) which should really have been included on I Am Very Far.

Stage Names is still their masterpiece for me with BSB running it a close second. I like IAVF fine, don't get the critical opprobrium it gets. Can't get into the last one at all.

I like 'em all but IAVF definitely took a long time to grow on me -- all the songs feel about twice as long as they actually are, which is a dubious accomplishment

& since nobody else has mentioned it yet, I gotta throw some love to the Sleep & Wake-Up Songs EP

oh lol it's literally the fist reply to the thread v_v still a great record though!

just realized will sheff sings a whole lot like jonathan richman!

New one streaming on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2016/09/01/491942048/first-listen-okkervil-river-away

Cool. At first listen this sounds like a real return to form after The Silver Gymnasium, which I still can't get into despite repeated plays.

Will is one of my fave frontmen

sounds stellar, a return to form - but also a lot of new territory, getting some Van Morrison/Joni Mitchell vibes in terms of song dynamics

i liked silver gymnasium more than most of y'all; it'd be in my top three w/ bsb and stage names. it's got some real joyful moments.

new one sounds to be more in the vein of golden dreams, which i'd put just a cut below those.

I'll give Silver Gym another go

I rank Stand Ins and Stage Names as perfect records, BSB obv also v v good, rarely listen to the early albums, forgot abt Golden Dreams (should revisit) and their "downfall" started w IAVF

This one is completely distinct from their previous output imo - almost nothing in the way of crescendos/indie-rock songwriting tropes beyond a couple of moments here and there. It sounds to me explicitly like a set of eulogies, except for the stream-of-consciousness closing track. (I guess more like "bouts-of-consciousness" based on the NPR writeup.)

The new Okkervil River album is called ‘Away’. I didn’t plan to make it and initially wasn’t sure if it was going to be an Okkervil River album or if I’d ever put it out. I wrote the songs during a confusing time of transition in my personal and professional life and recorded them quickly with a brand new group of musicians. I got together the best New York players I could think of, people whose playing and personalities I was fans of and who came more out of a jazz or avant garde background, and we cut the songs live in one or two takes – trying to keep things as natural and immediate as possible – over three days in a studio on Long Island that hosts the Neve 8068 console which recorded Steely Dan’s Aja and John Lennon’s Double Fantasy. I asked Marissa Nadler to sing on it and got the composer Nathan Thatcher to write some beautiful orchestral arrangements, we recorded them with the classical ensemble and then I mixed the record with Jonathan Wilson out in Los Angeles.

from http://www.stereogum.com/1877894/okkervil-river-okkervil-river-r-i-p/mp3s/

I really love this record. it reminds me a lot of the most recent counting crows record (compliment) in the way scheff stretches out lyrically, packing a lot of information into these songs but still communicating very directly and clearly. the arrangements are also v gorgeous and spacious

great hangover record too

I just noticed that "The Industry" references The Silver Gymnasium's Pitchfork score

xp important quality! was there ever a hangover record thread?
God Save The Clientele probably my all time #1

that album art...

... perhaps works well on a big canvas

i liked silver gymnasium quite a lot, i thought it was better as an album than the previous few even if the high points weren't as high

will listen to this new one asap

there is indeed a hangover music thread

hehe, I see

the instrumentation on "judey on a street" sounds imported from a van morrison record

Love that bopping bassline, and the way it peters out like a fading pulse

Interesting to read about how "Days Spent Floating" was recorded, it totally does sound like an afterthought, but somehow not in a bad way. Loosens out into almost nothing.

"Red" and "Kansas City" is an all-time one-two punch imo

I haven't given a shit about OR since The Stage Names. What is that, nine years ago? To this day, Black Sheep Boy is the only front-to-back great album in my book. And if I'm honest, from The Stage Names, only "Savannah Smiles" is the song that floors me to this day - that song is really an all-time "sad-bastard" classic.

I remember making copy CDs of BSB for all my friends - easily an album that translated across most of my friend-base, even among the "12-CD-a-year-club" friends that we all share. Given all that, I'm kind of surprised how little I care about a new release from this band. Their last couple have left me so cold. But I guess I still have some hope...

give it a shot, my experience is basically parallel to yours

Soooooo yeah I think this might be the best thing Sheff's done so far.

I think this is the best Okkervil album.

(i'm going to listen to the new one soon)

"black sheep boy #4" -- wow, still so moving after all these years

i can't stop listening to this album

this is not as much of a departure sonically as people were making it sound but it feels fresh regardless

I'm starting to think the album would be a little better off, pacing-wise, without "She Would Look For Me" but otherwise I'm still enamored. Reviews have been surprisingly middling for the most part? They all have the feel of folks who listened to it maybe twice.

I'm in love with "Mary On a Wave," love that almost-groove.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnXEtu6nwFY

did we know that scott walker covered "black sheep boy"??

yeah! everyone loves tim hardin

oh duh i forgot the song "BSB" was a tim hardin cover

not really feeling this on first listen :( will definitely try again

It took me a few listens. Hell, it took me 5 or 6 to make sense of "Call Yourself Renee" as the second track.

yeah it took more listens than usual but i adore this album now

it's a bit of a trojan horse where the previous albums were all very up-front about going straight at your emotions

I'm in love with "Mary On a Wave," love that almost-groove.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Saturday, September 10, 2016 2:37 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ever the contrarian, I found myself thinking this might be their best album one the first run through and now, having listened again to BSB (although the appendix nudges it to a very high level admittedly) I am convinced it is. I can't understand how anyone could rate this as a seven out of ten album.

I like this album fine but the idea that it's better than BSB or The Stage Names is indeed contrarian.

not sure about BSB yet but I'll take this one over any other Okkervil record

Maybe it's the fact that it reminds me (in places) of prime American Music Club but I definitely prefer it to TSN.

Yeah, lyrically, this one is actually reminding me a lot of late-period AMC and recent solo Eitzel, where he crams in as many words as possible in a song and tells a story (ie: Patriot's Heart, Windows on the World).

I really like this album... maybe I should be listening to AMC! never tried getting into them tbh

OR releases since The Stage Names felt like a series of dead ends, an ever-improving band let down by some directionless songwriting (the Golden Opportunities series really stands head & shoulders above those records; I'm sure the live shows were great, too) & so it's nice to hear nine tracks' worth of memorable melodies & interesting lyrics again -- the looser, pared-back arrangements are also welcome, although I kinda dug the era of Will Sheff as mad fussy recording artiste getting 25 musicians in the studio for a single take, I think I'm way more likely to actually listen to this album the way through

whoever compared Away to Astral Weeks upthread was OTM (that comparison may even have come from the press kit? in which case, lol)

Lol I didn't get no press kit (I think)

maybe I should be listening to AMC! never tried getting into them tbh

This doesn't really sound anything like Eitzel/AMC to me but they're essential regardless. I recommend their final album The Golden Age as a starting point.

this is the 3rd recent thing i like a lot that's had AMC invoked in discussion about it so i should probably get on that as well

this showed up on Spotify, last time i checked it wasn't there.

ciderpress, one of the other two were, I'm guessing, Ryley Walker (slightly more OTM)? what was the third?

god, black sheep boy is still so good. i have the stage names on CD and listen to it much more, and often will try to convince myself that it is superior, but...

xp dont remember the 3rd but i remember thinking 'that's the second time' when someone said it for ryley walker

maybe i just have deja vu

Still listening to this in full every few days, still totally in love with it. Deserves to be mentioned right alongside the other (also great) Albums About Death that have dominated conversation this year (Bowie, Cave, to a lesser extent Touché Amore, more I'm forgetting I'm sure). On recent listens Marissa Nadler's backing vocals have really emerged as an essential bit of coloring.

yeah it's really good. I listened to it so much while it was streaming that all the hooks are embedded in my head now, but I can't always remember which song a given snatch of melody occurs in, the whole thing is so much 'of a piece'

also: the departure from previous albums was what initially stood out, but now I've started to recognize lines of continuity, e.g. the way "Frontman in Heaven" recalls (to my ears) Okkervil River's outstanding cover of Big Star - "O, Dana"

that really is a great cover, I really love that first Golden Opportunities tape. I'd kill for them to release the full "Basement Tapes"-style session that produced some of those covers and "The President's Dead"

3 weeks out and i'm still listening to "Mary On a Wave" on repeat, this is the best song of his career

masterpiece alert

I'm inclined to agree.

Really like every song but She Would Look For Me is the one that is offering up so much more than I initially thought would.

and of course, this is a perfect fall album

...perfect for every fall, it turns out. I picked up the 2xLP early this year; the fourth side features a sidelong field recording (including a patch of rain), which is a nice alternative to the "fourth side etching" most bands are doing these days.

3 weeks out and i'm still listening to "Mary On a Wave" on repeat, this is the best song of his career

― ciderpress, Wednesday, September 28, 2016 12:05 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

still stand by this

not sure if I'd go that far but it is a blissful thing

couldn't agree more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiOJBGjnV04

hmmmmmmm

while it's sonically completely different from Away, which imo was a masterpiece, I think the songwriting seems on point

dang i figured Away was gonna be a Final Album for the OR bandname

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ7bMUsOu7w

Not exactly my taste but oh well, in many ways finding a new direction is a sign of life - long live Okkervil River

dad rock is cool in 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG3YIoW_2zs

I liked Away a lot, and this is better than anything on Away

ooof I completely disagree, this is diminishing returns on the "sad tales of showbiz" Sheff vein of songwriting (despite the autobiographical addition)

this is better than anything on Away

https://i.imgur.com/sSgATjF.gif

it's got a good melody though

Sheff's "inspirations" playlist for this record features "Let's Go Out Tonight" which is not a huge surprise but unfortunately there's just a little too much going on for full-on Blue Nile worship

his is diminishing returns on the "sad tales of showbiz" Sheff vein of songwriting

Agree that he'd run that muse into the ground. But he finds the emotional core of each of these stories, and I am very there for those turns of phrase

i like the crispness and glossiness of the production. i wish that carried through to... the other two songs i've heard from this

though on revisit i like what's going on in "pulled up the ribbon" too. "don't move back to la" is borrrrrrring in a way that away never was

can't imagine he'll ever top Away for me though i think i thought the same thing about Black Sheep Boy a decade earlier and then my tastes changed

I appreciate that Sheff is both restless and prolific even if the results have been wildly variable in quality for the last few records. That's a lot more than I can say for basically all the other big indie singer-songwriters who came up around the same time.

also I had no idea they covered "Candle on the Water" for the nu-Pete's Dragon OST. That must have been a nice little check.

So this compelled me to listen to the album, and there are times when it feels like a worthwhile sequel to Away but it loses the plot something awful in its second half. Lots of wild swings; tries to do way too much and breaks the spell, which I guess is the story of post-Stage Names Okkervil River. It's gonna be worth excavating though; there are a few knockout songs ("Love Somebody" and esp "Pulled Up The Ribbon") and even some of the long winded songs have these little moments of bliss scattered throughout them.

this is my favorite of the singles so far, love the dizzy melancholy vibe

diminishing returns on the "sad tales of showbiz"
otm but imo the autobiographical addition really lifts it

Simon, where's that inspiration playlist?

https://open.spotify.com/user/okkervilriver/playlist/74vXlXmcChs5sJ5Z8azPNk?si=6XKjKURHQImbFIZUZ1JUjA

nice!

Also, someone asked me to make a representative CD80 and it's really tough! This is the best I could manage

https://open.spotify.com/user/suckerblues/playlist/4i8gfO0gt8LEFXnFlkpBpY?si=vTvBNF7mTXiC32Rfvxc_aw

Can't think of another band that can turn me both on and off as hard as OR

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/19/602258666/first-listen-okkervil-river-in-the-rainbow-rain

I just realized both this record and the new Manics explicitly reference Caitlin Thomas

nice coincidence, i listened to away yesterday during a very long commute. that could be a favorite album of all time for me in a few years. i can think of very few records that approach it in mood and ambition (the great american music club records come to mind and not much else).
i also kinda think van morrison should cover at least half of it

Halfway through the new one and it's gonna take a bunch of listens to sort out whether the sonic pivot works or not. the Blue Nile influence is definitely palpable and "Love Somebody" even evokes the 1975 a bit, but I don't think I like Sheff writing in this deliberately broader lyrical mode. "Pulled up the Ribbon" has grown on me a lot though, their best single in a long time.

Album definitely feels like work in away that Away never did. Also a classic case of "songs don't justify their length" syndrome

yeah it's a really weird record. I liked a few tracks on first contact but like with Silver Gymnasium Sheff seems to be chasing down a set of ideas that don't play to his strengths

otm and otm

can one of you journalists call Will and ask how he cleared the Kinks riff?

Sheff's "inspirations" playlist for this record features "Let's Go Out Tonight" which is not a huge surprise but unfortunately there's just a little too much going on for full-on Blue Nile worship

― Simon H., Tuesday, April 17, 2018 11:29 AM (two days ago

*clicks furiously*

which Kinks riff?

k3vin the BN influence is only really felt on maybe 3-4 tracks, fair warning

haha I am an okkervil fan at baseline so it's not strictly necessary, was just making an in character post

The 'Waterloo Sunset' riff is in the new song.

xp

"Famous Tracheotomies" is great, not least because while it references "Waterloo Sunset" structurally it most resembles "Celluloid Heroes."

https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/8hov84/hi_im_will_sheff_frontperson_for_the_band/

I've been so out of the Okkervil loop for the last ten+ years that I didn't even know so many albums had come out, but I decided to give the latest one a spin and it's quite nice. Never thought I'd say that in 2018.

The new one has its moments but, as discussed upthread, Away is a bit of a secret masterpiece.

I really like "love somebody"

^ Yeah, that's the one that really stuck out for me.

great song, he talks a bit about it here https://uproxx.com/music/okkervil-river-interview-in-the-rainbow-rain-love-somebody-video/

album's a grower too, Sheff's such a humanist (reminds me of DFW, less mathematically rational, more spiritual)

yeah he seems like a good dude for sure

New monthly live series and request tour this summer, one album per month. I actually really appreciate that it's a digital-only affair (there are too many boutique vinyl releases these days), even if the whole thing is a little steep for me.

First release has a gorgeous, glacial "For Real"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuI3rA0Odls

apropos of nothing, "The President's Dead" plays *very* differently these days. Try it!

Just saw that Travis Nelsen, Okkervil's drummer from Black Sheep Boy to The Stand Ins, has passed.

I wish I had more to contribute on the subject, but I'll just add that his drumming on Black Sheep Boy is a perfect complement to the high dramatics of the album, and he was very fun to watch live.

oh man that sucks. I've been playing "black sheep boy #4" a ton lately

basically every song those sessions produced is incredible, Sheff and co. were on fire and Brian Beattie's production work was remarkable. I'm shocked he didn't become a go-to studio magician after that.

new Sheff solo on the way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph-zatqd8Go

single sounds like an album track, not bad

sounds like an Okkervil River record to me
https://willsheff.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-special

3 listens in, very good

When this snuck out I didn't read any press around it so I didn't think about it possibly presaging the end of Okkervil River and that he would be going out as a solo artist going forward. Of course he wrote a song called "RIP Okkervil River" but then went and released another album under that name. Well this interview certainly seems to suggest that Okkervil River is indeed no more:

https://www.stereogum.com/2201956/will-sheff-after-okkervil/interviews/qa/

that's a v good interview, thx!

Sheff is more invested in interrogating why Okkervil River was able to thrive, not in spite of its occasionally vengeful and violent music, but because of it. Specifically, whether they helped reinforce what Sheff describes as “the Harry Potter narrative,” in which we’re all misunderstood wizards stuffed in the Cupboard Under the Stairs, waiting for our magical capacities to be discovered. There certainly was a revenge-of-the-nerds element to mid-aughts indie culture, from TV to film to Black Sheep Boy itself, which generated comparisons to contemporaries like Bright Eyes, the Decemberists, the National and Arcade Fire — feverishly literary groups armed with seriously uncool instruments that cloaked their darker undertones with an invigorating, us-against-the-world mentality. Sheff worries about “the men out there who feel like the world stiffed them, that they’re owed something,” extrapolating this mindset to a kind of “fascism of superhero movies.” “I started to see my preoccupation with jealousy and what I felt my work deserved.”

"For Real" is def a song that grabbed my attention back then, but now my favorite record is Away, and that's more or less solo Sheff, so not too concerned with the band name

New album is v good, hightlights include title track and In The Thick of It

this is sad:

he estimates that he’ll end his East and West coast tours approximately $5-7,000 in the red. He expects to lose double that going to Europe