Okkervil River
Black Sheep Boy

THE REVIEW

And I think I know what the bitter dismay
of a lover who brings them

fresh bouquets every day
only to be rejected for a memory of Her

of some scoundrel
who one day, years ago,

gave her a single rose..."

(from "A Stone")

Is there anything purer than a triumphant defeat, a noble surrender?

That feeling that is satisfaction and longing, a yearning for a light that dims with every step taken towards Her?

From Austin, Texas, Will Sheff and his crew cloak lost loves in the passage of time, everyday stories, and inevitable self-examinations with disenchantment and yes, a pinch of disappointment.

Like a black viscose scarf thrown over an oil lamp.

The intro, which is also the title track and a cover of Tim Hardin, serves effectively as a "legend" or guiding thread of an album that finds in the declamatory unrest of "For Real" an excellent path to its presentation. Electric shocks over a dazzling yet drowsy base offer us a distorted and partial view of the real characteristics of "Black Sheep Boy."

"Show me that you really tried.
And I don't want to hear:
"It shouldn't be this way,"
because for me, THIS way, it's just fine..."

Indeed, it is trapped somewhere between the Nick Drake of Pink Moon and the creaks of Sparklehorse, the fragile, needy, and suspended "In a Radio Song," and you almost fear the crystal it's made of might shatter into a thousand pieces due to the bass line and the calls for rough justice from a "Black" that captivates you at first listen.

The defiant and regret-laden folk of "Get Big" is a prelude to the assimilation of 9 minutes for which simple and ephemeral words seem almost offensive.

A delightful modern fairy tale, punctuated by trumpets, marimba, and delay arpeggios, "A King and a Queen" literally pairs with a "A Stone" in which it sounds like listening to The Black Heart Procession forcefully attached to a drip of antidepressants until a bitter and "losing" epilogue sets things back in place.

The enjoyable and nervous Indie-Rock of "The Latest Thoughts" brings us back to reality, while the borderland Stomp-Country of "Song of our So-Called Friend" reminds us how heartbreaking the impossibility of being loved is when you want nothing else.

Granular, hazy, amidst counterpoints of piano and brass that console vocal cords broken by recent crying and a touch too much scotch, "So Come Back, I am Waiting" precedes the desperate final ballad "A Glow," hallucinated and heart-wrenching just enough to extract a tear, a sigh, and a multitude of discordant thoughts.

Can one, in all honesty, ask for more from a simple record???

"You emit a glow.
Climb into my arms
with your blood-stained clothes.
Enter the den...emit a glow."