This next record saw a slight adjustment to the random rolling system. I ended up rolling the seven song EP the band released as bonus material first. Since the EP makes the most sense as an addendum (coda?) to the main record, and was even released the same year, I figured they should be reviewed together. So, here they are as a double review.
Disc 1582 is…. Black
Sheep Boy (and Black Sheep Boy Appendix)
Disc 1583 is…. Black
Sheep Boy Appendix)
Year of Release: 2005 (both)
What’s up with the Cover? Our titular Black Sheep Boy joins a warthog and a bird in staring at an empty plate. This looks to be the worst dinner party ever. They’re even all herbivores, meaning they can’t even eat each other. At least the radio behind BSB’s head can provide some music, but I expect it is depressing music and worse than that – played in mono.
Yeah, that’s right mono enthusiasts, I went there. Mono sucks.
And now…bonus album cover art, with the cover of…the Appendix!
What’s up with this Cover? Things have not improved for our Black Sheep Boy since the World’s Worst Dinner Party. It looks like in the absence of a good meal, our hero has become quite hangry, donning a set of half-plate and – with eyes literally burning with rage – has plunged his sword into the eyesocket of a black sheep…armadillo?
How I Came To Know It: I got into Okkervil River about ten years ago after seeing an ad for their 2011 release “I Am Very Far” in a music magazine. That caused me to start digging backward into their catalogue and three albums into that journey through time I arrived at “Black Sheep Boy”.
I did not know about “Black Sheep Boy Appendix” until a couple years ago where I randomly saw a used copy at the local record store.
How It Stacks Up: I have nine Okkervil River albums (including this one) and two of their EPs (including this one). Of those, I put “Black Sheep Boy” in at #4, and the Appendix at #2 out of the EPs.
Ratings: 4 stars for Black Sheep Boy; 2 stars (barely) for the Appendix
“Black Sheep Boy” is the album that broke Okkervil River “big”. Heh heh. I jest, of course. Okkervil River has never broken big, probably because their music is too interesting, unique and thoughtful to get radio play. In any event, in my limited experience of having conversations with people about Okkervil River, “Black Sheep Boy” is often talked of in revered tones as “their best”. I don’t share that assessment, but I do think it is an excellent record.
For those of you who haven’t read previous reviews of the band, Okkervil River are a mix of rock, country, folk and…warble? You may get horns, you may get the sound of a river, and you’ll probably get a bit of guitar, maybe rocking out, maybe pastorally plucked. It varies.
The one thing you will definitely get is Will Sheff’s unique vocals. Sheff sounds a bit like a Vegas crooner, if the crooner was a doomed character in an H.P. Lovecraft story. He has a Gothic quality to his vocals, and an anguish to his delivery that makes every song flush with deep feeling.
Sheff is also the principal songwriter, and he builds tunes around his vocal style. The melody will tend to trip forward an extra bar or so past where you think it is going to resolve. The lyrics follow suit, with strong alliteration and assonance, tripping over themselves like they’re staggering down a staircase. Here’s an example of the lyrics from my favourite song on the record, “A Stone”:
“And if it could
start
Being alive, you'd stop living alone
And I think I believe
That if stones could dream
They'd dream of being laid side-by-side
Piece-by-piece
and turned into a castle
For some towering queen
They're unable to know”
It is hard to select this small selection, as these songs are all set-piece poems, most beautiful when heard in their entirety. On the page that “falling forward” quality isn’t fully realized but trust me, alongside the tune it is sublime.
It is also sad and full of no small amount of self-loathing. This record came from a dark place for Sheff that I’d speak to more but won’t, partly because I don’t cotton to post-Modern approaches to understanding art through externalities, but mostly because I don’t need to. Like any good work of art, “Black Sheep Boy” speaks for itself, and voices its own truths.
The album is not perfect, and there are places where the band is either too clever for their own good. The sound of water and birdsong “In a Radio Song” feels emotionally manipulative, and the eight minute long “So Come Back I’m Waiting” unsurprisingly drags a bit. Despite these small quibbles, this is one of Okkervil River’s better records.
Black Sheep Boy Appendix
If you were to strip out most of the great stuff from the original album, and just keep the overwrought and overthought stuff like “In a Radio Song” and “So Come Back I’m Waiting” you’d have the Appendix.
I suspect these songs are the ones that got cut from the original album and listening to them I can understand why. The strings and horns that give pleasant flourishes to the original record here are dominant and intrusive. Instrumentals/Soundscapes like “A Garden” and “A Forest” are as aimless as they are pointless.
I was unsurprised that there is a song called “Another Radio Song” furthering the themes of one of the few songs from the original record that left me unfulfilled.
“Black Sheep Boy #4” is the one solid entry that is worth hearing. It had me wondering what troubling adventures Black Sheep Boy #2 and #3 got up to. Alas, no reveal on this mystery. I assume whatever it was takes him from “guy missing out on dinner” to “guy ramming a sword into an armadillo’s face”.
If I had to review this package as a single entity, the Appendix would pull the works down to a bare three stars. However, I’ve decided to see them as separate entities, with the original being excellent and the add-ons from the Appendix being the kind of unnecessary that will be leaving my music collection shortly after I click “post”.
Best tracks: (all from the original album): Black Sheep Boy, For Real, Black, A King and a Queen, A Stone, Song of Our So-Called Friend
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