CD Reviews

Okkervil River

The Stand Ins | Jagjaguwar

By RICHARD BECK | September 2, 2008

1.5 Stars

On “Singer Songwriter,” the third track on Okkervil River’s new LP, Will Sheff sings, “I heard cuts by the Kinks on your speakers/I saw Poe and Artaud on your shelves. . . . You’ve got taste/What a waste that that’s all that you have.” Zing, I suppose. The real problem with taste here is that Sheff doesn’t have any. This record is a sequel to 2007’s The Stage Names, and it shares its predecessor’s concerns: artifice, authenticity, and above all, the sniveling insincerity of hazy-eyed media zombies. So Sheff, equipped with a ragged, weepy voice, fights back with admirable passion but poor intelligence. A la-la-la chorus goes unendingly on; a botched acoustic guitar intro lurches by; the usual bevy of Sufjan-esque mandolins, horns, and Wurlitzers rounds out the band’s straight-ahead, slightly spare rock 4/4, Sheff singing all the while like a man bent on saving me from myself. I’m unpersuaded. Yeah, I agree that some of the culture’s more ironical tendencies merit opposition, but you’ve got to let the brain help the heart out sometimes.

Related: Thugs on parade, Spring clearance, Where hip-hop lives, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Okkervil River, Will Sheff, STAND INS

| More

ARTICLES BY RICHARD BECK

PLUCK AND DETERMINATION | March 09, 2010
People have always thought that Joanna Newsom was indulgent. At first, it was about her voice — the kind of nasal yelp that usually keeps a performer from getting on stage at all. Then, on her second album, it was about her vocabulary and her instrumentation.

SONG OF HERSELF | August 05, 2009
"Listen, I will go on record saying I love Feist, I love Neko Case. I love that music. But that shit's easy listening for the twentysomethings. It fucking is. It's not hard to listen to any of that stuff."

DJ QUIK AND KURUPT | BLAQKOUT | June 15, 2009
LA hip-hop has two threads, and DJ Quik pulls both of them. The first is g-funk, a production style that relies on deep, open grooves and an endless parade of funk samples.

FLIPPER | LOVE | May 26, 2009
Flipper formed in San Francisco in 1979, and they're remembered three decades later because of a song called "Sex Bomb" that's one of the funniest pieces of music I've ever heard.

ST. VINCENT'S ACTOR GETS A RUN-THROUGH | May 26, 2009
There were not one but two clarinets on stage at the Somerville Theatre on Tuesday night, and that gives you some idea of how intricate Annie Clark's chamber-pop compositions can be.