Okkervil River - The Stand Ins [Sept/Oct 2008]

[Starlite]

The Stand Ins will be released via Jagjaguwar this fall (September 9 in the US and October 13 in the UK and Europe).

http://www.okkervilriver.com/images/news/51068_okkervil.jpg

Track list:

01 The Stand Ins, One
02 Lost Coastlines
03 Singer Songwriter
04 Starry Stairs
05 Blue Tulip
06 The Stand Ins, Two
07 Pop Lie
08 On Tour With Zykos
09 Calling and Not Calling My Ex
10 The Stand Ins, Three
11 Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979

[hildegoat]

I'll be picking up this one for sure.

[Sydneyfan]

Looking forward to it. And I guess they liked the cover art of The Stage Names so much they decided to stick with the same theme.

[hildegoat]

It's actually supposed to be Volume Two of The Stage Names. I read somewhere that they figured it was too over-the-top to do a double album, so they split it.

And I haven't tried it, but apparently the cover images go together like a puzzle (i.e the guy's hand is on The Stage Names cover).

[Sydneyfan]

It's actually supposed to be Volume Two of The Stage Names. I read somewhere that they figured it was too over-the-top to do a double album, so they split it.

And I haven't tried it, but apparently the cover images go together like a puzzle (i.e the guy's hand is on The Stage Names cover).

Gotcha. Well, I loved The Stage Names so Pt 2 sounds good to me.

[raisemyglass]

I've been listening to them non-stop for the last couple of months. (Since some fine folks here recommended them:upyours).
Really nice to hear some new stuff this year.:banana

[SkortBrun]

When I first heard they were coming out with a new album I honestly didn't care, but then I bought The Stage Names. Now I care. A lot. Really looking forward to this one.

[hildegoat]

Another convert. :upyours

[littleamen]

This makes me very happy!!

Now, they just need to play in TX or Minneapolis at the same time I'm there.

[hilde's groupie]

Oh yeah! I <3 Okkervil River.

[hildegoat]

You'd better.

[hilde's groupie]

I do. And, your love of this band might allow me to forgive your vote in the last round of survivor. :)

[hildegoat]

I've been slowly gaining followers since I was repetitive to the point of being annoying when we did the Best Of 2007 list.

[Rob]

Download "Lost Coastlines" here:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/stereogum/cBYa/~5/363296800/Okkervil%20River%20-%20Lost%20Coastlines.mp3

[hildegoat]

I just preordered my copy from the label, and it looks like it comes with a free digital download and posters from The Stage Names and this album. For only $11 plus shipping! :banana

[hildegoat]

From the preorder site:

OKKERVIL RIVER's new full-length album The Stand Ins is the sequel to 2007's critically acclaimed The Stage Names, which Pitchfork praised as "...one of the year's best," and The New York Times proclaimed, "This band's musical arsenal keeps getting fuller." The Stand Ins was recorded in Austin and produced by longtime collaborator Brian Beattie and Okkervil River. The album features 11 songs and includes the track "Lost Coastlines," on which Sheff and recently departed Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater share a duet on the joys and hardships of trying to keep the band together. Of the process Will Sheff explains, "We had so many songs we were excited about that we briefly threw around the idea of just putting out a double record. Instead, we decided to take a group of songs that fit with each other and turn that into The Stage Names, setting the rest aside for a future release, a The Stage Names sequel." The Stand Ins is that sequel, part two of a staggered double album. Like artist William Schaff's embroidered artwork, which depicts what's happening underneath The Stage Names' front-cover quicksand hand,The Stand Ins picks up exactly where Part One left off but also delves deeper into the story and theme of The Stage Names. It is a full-length, fleshed-out, deeply ambitious labor of love.

[SkortBrun]

Thanks for the tip, M. Just pre-ordered my copy.

[hildegoat]

Here's the preorder link for others: http://www.scdistribution.com/cat/scd_catalognew.php?action=set_site_id&site_id=2

[littleamen]

Review by sterogum.

doesn't feel like a year, but we just double checked and its true: We excitedly evaluated The Stage Names late last July. Now, 12 months and change later, Will Sheff & Co. are back with The Stage Names' sequel and the band's fifth full-length, The Stand-Ins. As the skeletal artwork and Sheff himself suggested, the new collection connects to its predecessor, continuing, echoing, and extending the story. You get more self-reflexive meta along the lines of the older "Title Track" in "Blue Tulip," etc. "Starry Stairs" is the continuation of the Savannah-themed (dead porn star, not southern city) "Savannah Smiles." The first proper song "Lost Coastlines" also continues its predecessor's seafaring themes and metaphors. This standout, which looks at the often turbulent waters that face a band, features the voice of the departed Jonathan Meiburg, who left the band to concentrate on Shearwater's bird and water songs. It's a poignant, rollicking farewell. One thing we're not clear on: How are the characters in these songs -- the ostensible stand-ins -- any different than those with bona fide stage names? As far as we can tell, they all seem equally lost, confused. Maybe they're watching from the sidelines?

Entire thing available here (http://stereogum.com/archives/premature-evaluation/premature-evaluation-okkervil-river-the-standins_013161.html).

[littleamen]

Not sure how to embed vimeo here. But I'm gonna try

Nevermind, I'm clearly retarded. Here's the link (http://www.vimeo.com/1515608) instead.

[littleamen]

Look what I got in the mail today....

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m94/littleamen/Photo9.jpg

[hildegoat]

Dammit! Mine just said it shipped today.

[littleamen]

Posters came too. They're really cool, except they're made out of 2 different materials. :\

[SkortBrun]

Dammit! Mine just said it shipped today.

Same.

[hildegoat]

Okkervil River:
The Stand Ins
[Jagjaguwar; 2008]
Rating: 8.0

Life was a crummy movie on Okkervil River's breakthrough album, The Stage Names. On The Stand Ins, it's a lousy rock show. As the interchangeable titles and puzzle-piece album covers imply, this new record is an extension of its predecessor, a further untangling of themes and ideas about music, art, celebrity, love, and the folly of it all. The Stand Ins doesn't quite match the gusto and brainy emotionalism of The Stage Names but it exceeds its bleakness. Pop songs lie, tortured singer-songwriters are wealthy narcissists, groupies have regrets, music scenes wither, nothing changes. Rock promises redemption but delivers only destruction, or at best, cultish relative obscurity. Okkervil River are the anti-Hold Steady. They should tour together.

At first listen, the main difference between The Stand Ins and The Stage Names is that Okkervil's latest lacks the sense of surprise. The band's 2005 record Black Sheep Boy came out of nowhere, a thematic and musical step forward after two strong earlier albums, and The Stage Names revealed a tight, resourceful band who played with enough force to redeem leader Will Sheff's doomed characters. The Stand Ins continues that ambitious musical development, further roughing up the group's sound while sharpening its attack to an even finer point, and refining some of their old tricks while introducing new ones (see: the country shuffle of "Singer Songwriter", Sheff's smooth croon on "Lost Coastlines", and the short orchestral interludes tying everything together like incidental film music.)

The Stand Ins begins with an orchestral prelude, before filling in the pages of Sheff's tattered songbook with "Lost Coastlines", whose boat metaphor and buoyant bassline hint at a connection with Stage Names closer "John Allyn Smith Sails". The song changes shape often, toggling between an acoustic jangle and a tense electric groove until it finally drifts out to sea on a sing-along of la la la's. Those syllables carry as much weight here as any other lyrics. It's a thrilling introduction, maybe even more apt than "Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe".

Touring almost constantly since well before Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River have transformed into an urgent rock band that imbues Sheff's songs with as much energy and personality as he does. At times, The Stand Ins sounds like a bassist's album: Patrick Pestorius plays like he's quit the rhythm section, adding unexpectedly melodic riffs that lend subtle gradations of color to these compositions. It's his bopping theme that connects the dots on "Lost Coastlines" and "Calling and Not Calling My Ex". When "Singer Songwriter" threatens to topple under its top-heavy accusations, Brian Cassidy and the Wrens' Charles Bissell right the song with their determined roadhouse gallop and piercing guitar licks. Then the band does a 180 and follows it up with the soulful, horn-laden midtempo groove of "Starry Stairs" (which may or may not be a sequel to "Savannah Smiles") and the grandiose show-closer "Blue Tulip", which ends with a perfect Byrdsy guitar riff-- one of the album's best moments.

In short, the band complements and counterbalances Sheff's cerebral songwriting simply by rocking out. His braininess is perhaps his greatest asset, and he's become one of the best lyric-writers going in indie rock, with a dense and distinctive style that trades on wordplay and internal rhymes. Song for song, he can jerk a tear with a carefully observed detail or turn of phrase ("Blue Tulip" in particular is a backlash tragedy on a human scale), but it's the way those songs talk to one another that makes Okkeril River albums so durable and fascinating.

Sheff wants to look beyond common pop song notions to discover something truer and more essential, no matter how disillusioning it may be, which is the central, enthralling contradiction for Okkervil River: Even as they ruthlessly deconstruct pop music, they make great pop music. The darker Sheff gets, the more honest he sounds and the more absorbing the song. By that equation, the stand-out on The Stand Ins is "Pop Lie", an exquisitely bleak dismantling of singer-songwriter pretensions. The pop singer lies in his songs, "and you're lying when you sing along!" (Hey, Hold Steady...) It's not hard to imagine a venue full of excited fans singing along, although it's difficult to determine whether he would view their participation as a bitter irony or a sincerely funny cosmic joke. Or if he would just smile and enjoy the moment, knowing that any listener can take that pop lie and make it true.


http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/145288-okkervil-river-the-stand-ins

[littleamen]

wow. generosity from The Fork.

[hildegoat]

Aquarium Drunkard has a long, complimentary review:

http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2008/09/08/okkervil-river-the-stand-ins/

[SkortBrun]

Came in the mail today :banana

Sounds very good so far.

[hildegoat]

Mine came in on Friday, so I'll have to take it out of the car this afternoon and give it the headphones treatment.

[Sydneyfan]

This is a great album.

[littleamen]

:nod

[brkndwnbus]

just picked this up today and the first quick listen is a great sign. I do love me some Okkervil River.

[BigNosedDago]

it's a lot weaker than the Stage Names

[roxy031]

Okkervil River is playing here on Friday (of course I'll be out of town) but our weekly culture paper has an article on them today.

That's not to say Sheff isn't fully engaged, however. Aside from maybe Ryan Adams and a couple of others, no one has been busier creating music over the past few years.

Full article here: http://encorepub.com/articles.php?i=read&article_id=193&section_id=3