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The Stage Names

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Okkervil River

 
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The Stage Names

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Average: 4.5 (521 ratings)

The sound of depression going widescreen.

  • We Say...

    Review by Amanda Petrusich

    Austin, Texas-based Okkervil River garnered loads of acclaim for 2005’s Black Sheep Boy, a collection of lonely, desperate rock songs anchored by frontman Will Sheff’s thick, shaky warble. After releasing two companion EPs, Okkervil River finally produced a proper follow-up: The Stage Names is a slightly less unhinged, but no less compelling effort, bolstered by the same rich lyrics and poetically-straining guitar (think slightly-less-righteous Bright Eyes) they’ve employed since 1998.

    The lovely “A Girl in Port” marries pedal steel and bits of piano while Sheff howls nervously about “her lacy clothes”; the no-less-winsome “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe” is appropriately cinematic, all epic bursts and controlled retreats. But it’s “John Allyn Smith Sails,” arguably one of the most bizarre pop experiments of the year, that soars: the song details, over light percussion and wisps of guitar, the suicide of beloved American poet John Berryman (the title refers to Berryman’s birth name — his biological father, John Smith, killed himself with a shotgun when Berryman was twelve, and Berryman eventually adopted his stepfather’s surname). Sheff nails down the specifics (“From a bridge on Washington Avenue/ The year of 1972/ Broke my bones and skull/ And it was memorable”) of Berryman’s infamous bridge leap (he missed the water), before — wait for it — easing into a spirited rendition of the Beach Boys’ version of “Sloop John B.” When Sheff yowls the chorus — “I feel so broke up/ I want to go home” — it’s hard to know whether to snicker, gag or yelp along.

  • They Say...

    Review by James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide

    Okkervil River broke away from the crowded indie rock pack with 2005's superb Black Sheep Boy, a ragged but ornate barroom romp that drank its way to the top of countless year-end lists by finding that thin vein that separates triumph and desperation and hammering as many nails into it as they could in under 50 minutes. Fans used to Will Sheff's visceral, lo-fi caterwauls may be disappointed in the bruised and elegant Stage Names upon first listen, but further spins reveal BSB as more of a stepping-stone than a peak. "It's just a life story/so there's no climax," from the rousing opener "Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe" sets the tone, and its floor tom gallop and volatile whoops sound like an unholy combination of My Aim Is True-era Elvis Costello and Transformer-era Lou Reed spilling out of an old player piano. Sheff has proven himself again and again to be a gifted wordsmith, and Stage Names features some of his finest parlor room romanticisms and slacker-poet observations to date. "Plus Ones," a studied rumination on some of popular music's most beloved numerically titled tracks ("96 Tears," "99 Luftballons," "Eight Miles High," "TVC 15," "7 Chinese Brothers," "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" etc.) adds an unnecessary integer ("Not everyone's keen on lighting candle 17/The party's done/The cake's all gone/The plates are clean"), cleverly illuminating pop culture's insatiable thirst for sequels and remakes. It's a trick that could easily turn trite in less capable hands, but one of the band's many strengths is its ability to mirror Sheff with arrangements that match the earnestness, wickedness and occasional pomp of the lyrics. Those talents are used most effectively on two of the record's other highlights, the soft and broken "Girl in Port" and the alternately heartbreaking and hysterical "John Allyn Smith Sails," the latter of which chronicles the suicide of poet John Berryman and manages to integrate the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" so seamlessly that you'd swear it had never existed before. It's not all winsome ballads about backstage passes and gutter bound writers though, as Sheff and company open up the full sneer on "Unless It's Kicks," "You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man" and "A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene," making Stage Names less of a metaphor for the cinematic lives we wish we could have and more of a reminder that it's us who make the films. [The first 5,000 copies of Stage Names (the "deluxe" edition) came with a bonus disc featuring all of Sheff's demos for the record.]

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