Okkervil River - Down The River Of Golden Dreams

Sure, I'd like to think that maybe this is just an honest little batch of songs-- after all, these sentimental, acoustic tracks do feel like old friends. Perhaps these sketchy moments where the band drifts into well-trodden paths and postured frameworks that don't necessarily reflect the band's ingenuity are mere aberrations or stochastic eventualities. What makes me wonder is the occasional sidestep; the buoyantly affected pop-mongering of Bens Folds and Kweller on "Blanket and Crib", or frontman Will Sheff's frequent throaty outbursts during which he dons a Conor Oberst-style charcoal hoodie with a Ludens-stuffed kangaroo pocket. I mean, when he's reserved there are these undeniably Tweedy-inflected vocals of crestfallen awareness. And sure, maybe the stuff isn't so much a stealthy combination of its influences (though all done admirably), as it is an expansive, heartfelt, and genuine display of songsmithing that runs from pure balladry to starkly sketched, deeply personal and densely moody revelations. Maybe.
'Cause no posturing indiephile I know opens a song ("The War Criminal Rises and Speaks") over meekly struck piano chords, earnestly and without any trace of excess-pageantry, with "The heart wants to feel/ The heart wants to hold/ The heart takes past Subway, past Stop-N-Shop, past Biel's/ And calls it 'coming home.'" 'Cause it's just not cool. But it is effective, and consistent with the tone of the rest of the album. Most of the songs wade in this pool of lost love and desperation, thrashing or floating about with a seeming disregard for stylistic retention, but in a manner so sufficiently suffocating it sometimes feels calculatedly linear, even though the results come in a variety of shapes and sizes: there are moments big and small, frisky and repined, shifty and direct.

More at http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/o/okkervil-river/down-the-river-of-golden-dreams.shtml

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