Twang alert! For whatever reason, this writer included, the sound of a soft slide guitar melody conjures up traditionalist notions in your average swimming-against-the-current indie rock audience. Its very existence in a song reminds most suburban youth of what their parents listen to--what they've fallen asleep to numerous times in the back of a minivan on a family road trip. There's nothing rebellious or "alternative" about music that's got slide guitar slinking around in it. Yet here we are with OkkervilRiver's fifth full-length on Jagjaguwar Records, a label responsible for Parts & Labor's drrrty noisy pop/punk and Oneida's demented obsession with Can and yelping/chanting combos. Its "Best New Music" label bestowed upon by pretentious music critic behemoth Pitchfork Media doesn't hurt either.
The truth of the matter is, earnestness often outweighs originality when it comes to music, whether it's for the masses or only those who buy clothes at thrift stores. And OkkervilRiver lyricist and band leader Will Sheff has mustered up enough earnestness throughout his outfit's career to prove this point tenfold. The group's 2000 debut Stars Too Small to Use sounded just like its title suggests--quaint, unsure, and absolutely adorable. The band's sound matured when picked up by Jagjaguwar for 2002's Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See, but they still weren't all that exciting.Talk about a slow-burning band: they finally really broke out (after another decent yet not noteworthy album) in 2005 with the epic folk record Black Sheep Boy.Finally, Sheff found the voice that would catapult his project from intimate and quiet to revelatory and didactic. Its grandiosity has grown even more with the new meta-conceptual The Stage Names.
Sure, that slide guitar stuck around, but Sheff's songs are more about their interiors than their exteriors anyway. Upon first listen, the majority of the record sounds not too different from any of OkkervilRiver's previous works, nor too different from any early Wilco or Old 97s album for that matter. When listened to close enough, however, the ample string swells and brass bombast cue the listener in to the hearts of these very competently orchestrated (not to mention cinematic) folk songs: the lyrics. Right away on this first track, Sheff demonstrates his ability not only as a poet but as a speaker of poems. He confesses with the utmost yearning the confusion between reality and filmed fiction on the album's best song "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe." He may be blowing his load, causing the remainder of the nine songs seem meager in comparison, but it's hard to fault him for such lyrical prowess. Images such as "no dissolve to a sliver of gray that's his new lady / where she closed just like rain on the flickering pane of some great movie" stick in your head as you imagine a close-up of Sheff pouring his heart out on stage as the lady (not) in question watches from the back of the venue, readying herself to leave early before Sheff catches her glance. Six more songs in, you'll still remember it.
Then, when the penultimate "Title Track" takes the listener down the lowest and tiniest aural point in the record, you've got to get ready for a tearjerker of a closer--the album's other main highlight. Named after a poet known for bridging socially aware poetry with the achingly personal, The Stage Names brings every referential life vs. art notion to a close with a stunning portrait of a man trying to do too much in "John Allyn Smith Sails." Just as in history, the song's main character ends his own life only a few blocks from the Radio K studios. As Minnesotans dealing with a recent media saturated tragedy, Sheff's lyrics "from a bridge on Washington Avenue, the year of 1972 / broke my bones and skull and it was memorable" take on a whole new meaning. Things don't have to sound new to be new--history repeats itself in new and terrifying ways everyday.
Stream: Okkervil River - You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man
