I should be thinking about getting
a good night’s sleep, but instead I’m thinking about getting in a music
review. CD Odyssey, you are a harsh
mistress.
Disc 575 is…. The Stand Ins
Artist: Okkervil
River
Year of Release: 2008
What’s up with the Cover? A disturbing little
skull puppet. For a guy with a skull
for a head this guy looks in desperate
need of a skeleton, or maybe based on that green bottle in one hand he’s just really
drunk. What’s up with his other hand you ask?
That’s a secret to reveal in a later review, so for now you’ll just have
to wait and wonder.
How I Came To Know It: A couple of years back I read an article about
Okkervil River in a folk music magazine Sheila put in my Christmas
stocking. I checked into them and was
told by some music store folks at Ditch not to get their most recent album (at
the time, this was 2011’s“I Am Very Far”) because it wasn’t very indicative of
their sound. Undeterred, I went and
Youtubed a bunch of their songs and liked the ones I heard on this album and
also those on 2007’s “The Stage Names” so I bought those records first.
How It Stacks Up: We have six of Okkervil River’s seven albums (still
missing their debut, “Don’t Fall in Love With Everyone You See”). Of the six, I’d say “The Stand Ins” is one of
my favourites – I’ll put it second.
Rating: 4 stars
Okkervil River is one of those
bands that deserves a lot more recognition than they get. This makes “The Stand Ins” a little ironic,
since the record is mostly about exploring ideas around being famous. A bit of a reach for Okkervil River, but then
again, maybe being moderately famous allows them the foot in both worlds
necessary to write an album like this.
Since this is my first Okkervil
River review, a quick note on the band’s general style. They are firmly indie rock, landing somewhere
between later Wilco and the Decemberists, with just a pale and wan hint of the
Smiths adding a dollop of melancholia.
I will credit “The Stand Ins” for
being a tight little album of only eleven tracks. It could even be a little more substantive than
it is, since three of those tracks (“Stand
Ins” Parts One, Two and Three respectively) are just little instrumental
mood pieces, each under a minute long. I
think the album establishes mood well enough without these song fragments.
The other eight songs are held
together by both the cohesive themes of fame (and its quality of disconnecting us
from meaningful human interaction). They
are also held together by the dreamy quality of Okkervil River’s music, which
manages to submerge the dangerously manic quality of indie rock under ‘tear in
my beer’ country song construction. Lead
singer Will Sheff’s voice - simultaneously high and angst-ridden and low and
mournful - plays a big part. He can sing
well under the melody or soar over it with equal grace, and his choices always serve
the song first, not the singer.
The song “Lost Coastlines,” sums up the album as a whole (as a good opening
track does). “Lost Coastlines” is a song about how making your way in the world
can sometimes mean losing your bearings.
Sheff’s phrasing is amazing, and is a hallmark for the band’s overall
style on the record. Lines blend into
one another, and also blend with the music in a way that makes the rhyming
lines seem almost accidental. The song
drives you forward like a leaf in the wind, unsure where one bar ends and
another begins. It is delightfully disorienting
– like a carnival ride for the subconscious.
As befits a band that stands in
between fame and obscurity, for every song internalizing the experiences of
celebrity, there is another about our reaction to those more famous than
ourselves. “Singer Songwriter” is a character study about the idly famous, receiving
recognition for who they are over what they accomplish and “Calling and Not Calling My Ex” is about
the pain of having ended a relationship with someone famous, and subsequently being
confronted with that person’s image at every turn.
“Calling and Not Calling My Ex” has a title that would usually have
me frothing mad, but in this case I think it well suited to that conflict we
have all felt when we desperately wanted to call someone we still care about, and
the knowledge that ship has already sailed down its own lost coastline.
The best song on the record is “On Tour With Zykos,” a still, quiet song
that steals into you all the more effectively for all of the tethered mania of
the other tracks. It is a song about the
emptiness of the road, but it appeals to anyone feeling like they’ve lost their
zest for life. If you’ve ever had a dry
spell in your creative endeavours these lines may appeal to you:
“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.
I’m discussed with desire
by the guys who conspire
at the only decent bar in town,
and they drink MGDs
and they wish they had me,
like I wish I had fire.”
This song has a lazy Sunday
afternoon quality to its flow, in the same way that “Sunday Morning Coming Down” does.
It is a lazy, do-nothing day, but it is the undercurrent that you should
be spending it differently that turns what should be relaxing into something
sad and slightly tragic.
Then again, if that last line
above had you thinking “that’s a bit maudlin” you’d be right. Okkervil River like to steep themselves in
the self-loathing (remember the touch of the Smiths I noted earlier) but it is
done well for the most part, so I forgive it. “Blue Orchid” and the unforgivably pretentiously titled “Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof
of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979” both stray too far over the line of self-pity.
Half this album is excellent, and
the other half is overwrought and self-indulgent, making a final rating
difficult to decide. Despite all its
warts, “The Stand Ins” drew me in on the the good songs well enough that I was
able to forgive its failings, and so right at the end I edged it into four star
territory, if only just.
Best tracks: Lost
Coastlines, Singer Songwriter, Starry Stairs, On Tour With Zykos, Calling and
Not Calling My Ex
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