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Okkervil River is an alt-country quartet formed in New Hampshire whose
first album
Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See (Jagjaguwar, 2002),
introduced an unusual
balance of evocative keyboards (Jonathan Meiburg), strong rhythms
(bassist Zachary Thomas, drummer Seth Warren),
tasty arrangements (horns, strings)
and plaintive vocals (Will Sheff).
The band's arrangements matured with
Down the River of Golden Dreams (Jagjaguwar, 2003).
The lament of It Ends with a Fall relies on
cantillating piano, gospel organ and chamber strings.
Storytelling and instrumental parts are tighly integrated, as the accordion
and mandolin prove in Dead Faces.
Sheff's delivery is a neutral straight talk that hardly homages any of American
greats (Dylan, Young, whatever). It is the instruments that create the magic.
In particular, Jonathan Meiburg's vast arsenal of keyboards (Hammond, Rhodes,
Mellotron, Wurlitzer)
is the real protagonist of the album, penning Blanket and Crib with
an epic, neoclassical feeling (underscored by a horn section), and propelling
the lively Seas Too Far To Reach with the warm domestic sound
of the Band.
In the meantime, strings turn The War Criminal Rises and Speaks into a
solemn, virulent parable a` la Warren Zevon.
Rarely has alt-country sounded so varied and melodic.
Okkervil River's keyboardist Jonathan Meiburg and
Okkervil River's guitarist
Will Sheff also formed Shearwater (this time fronted by Meiburg) that
recorded collections of subdued and romantic meditations such as
The Dissolving Room (Grey Flat, 2001), that was still influenced by
the spartan dejected sound of alt-country as originally inspired by
Nick Drake,
and
Everybody Makes Mistakes (2002), that added bassist
Kim Burke and drummer Thor Harris, employed
vibraphone, pump organ and strings to enhance the atmosphere in the vein of
Belle And Sebastian.
The new quartet achieved a supernatural degree of cohesiveness on
Winged Life (Misra, 2004), a work of transfigured
country-rock.
The whole flows smoothly as if it were just one song, while, in reality,
each song is fundamentally different: from the gentle crooning and the hypnotic ticking of the guitar in the intense A Hush to the
colloquial trotting of My Good Deed,
from the idiom of
Neil Young's Harvest adopted in
The Kind to the
bluesy singing, anthemic banjo and wardance rhythm of Whipping Boy,
from the sunny upbeat A Makeover to the
lulling Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine.
However, the second half loses steam, having to rely on mediocre melodies
and a fragile monotonous accompaniment.
And also the grand finale of The Set Table comes out a little
half-baked.
Shearwater's impeccable Palo Santo (2006),
penned with dulcimer, vibraphone, glockenspiel, harp, and banjo,
was basically Meiburg's a solo album with guests. He borrowed from the gentle
and romantic songwriters of the 1970s via the introverted celestial melancholy
of Jeff Buckley, adding pastoral and
ecological overtones.
It is nonetheless a schizophrenic work. First come the fragile contemplations:
the solemn and sorrowful piano-driven elegy La Dame Et La Licorne in
the vein of Mark Lanegan,
bookended by abstract nebulae of sounds;
Palo Santo, whispered tip-toeing through delicate guitar chord
reminiscent of
Simon & Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair;
the spare hymn-like Nobody;
Sing Little Birdie, a country yodel so intense to evoke a religious aria from a convent;
Failed Queen, an ecstatic litany worthy of Jefferson Starship's most spiritual moments drenched in the moaning and wailing of the string instruments;
and the almost impalpable, feathery closer, Going Is Song.
At the other end of the spectrum are brilliant songs that display plenty of
verve and rhythm:
Red Sea Black Sea, that could be a pulsing Brian Eno lullaby and almost seems farcical;
the blues-rocking White Waves,
the neurotic and bombastic Seventy-Four Seventy-Five,
the martial and menacing Hail Mary,
and Johnny Viola, propelled by an anthemic piano figure somewhere
between a television soundtrack and Warren Zevon.
The bigger-sounding Rook (Matador, 2008), another de-facto solo album, did not quite match that magic.
On The Death Of The Waters adopts the post-rock aesthetic of mood swings,
with a surge into Neil Young-ian neurosis. The Snow Leopard follows suit
with an almost hysterical progression.
Rooks returns to the simple and stately roots-rock of Winged Life but with a twist: a shrill tone that could come out of a castrated church singer.
The mature arranger shows up in the dirge Leviathan Bound, wrapping it
in a blanket of violin, glockenspiel and dulcimer.
The seven-minute Home Life, instead, highlights the limit of his art: too much
melodrama not adequately supported by musical variety ends up sounding verbose
and monotonous.
Ditto for the delicate tapestry of I Was A Cloud that simply fades away
without having demonstrated much.
By contrast, the simpler and shorter Lost Boys, that spans several different
tones of voice in just two minuts, achieves a much stronger emotional
impact.
So does the (finally) rocking Century Eyes, worthy of
Warren Zevon.
Okkervil River's fourth album, Black Sheep Boy (Jagjaguwar, 2005),
represented the best incarnation yet of their "chamber roots-rock"
aesthetic. It also offered the best insight into their art's
multi-layered structure.
There are two stabs at a more extroverted style, the
poppy and driving The Latest Toughs and the
catchy and bouncy For Real.
There is a second layer of songs that strike a subtler chord:
the tender singalong A King and a Queen,
the trotting country-rock ditty Song Of Our So-Called Friend,
the lethargic, atmospheric, waltzing Missing Children that ends the album on a tone of infinite melancholy,
and, towering over everything else, the solemn and almost neoclassical A Stone.
Yet another layer consists of the rarified laments of In A Radio Song and Get Big that radiate the most introverted emotions.
Sometimes the arrangements are the opposite of the vocals: indifferent, lazy
and elegant where the singer is poignant, feverish and rough.
The contrast makes for some true drama.
The final layer is just one song, but an eight-minute one,
So Come Back I Am Waiting. It is a narrative in which the instruments
truly accompany the tortured voice as it slowly penetrates a state of
terror and then awakens from it to soar in an epic act of self-recreation.
Each layer shows a different facet of the project, but they all share the
same existential mood, and each one contributes to give meaning to the others.
Will Sheff further enhanced his reputation as a classical tunesmith on
The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar, 2007), a sort of concept that focuses
on two dichotomies: the dichotomy between entertainment and reality, and
the dichotomy between life and death.
The opening Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe, a vehement song
drenched in U2-like epos and
propelled by a solemn piano figure and by tribal drums
(and boasting a dissonant intermezzo),
stands as the album's existential manifesto.
In general,
the band is a bit harsher than usual, rocking in a fuller way
in You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man and especially
Unless It's Kicks.
The arrangements (especially the horns and strings) are carefully thought out
to have the maximum emotional impact while disturbing the narrative as little
as possible. A song such as A Hand To Take Hold of the Scene changes
personality a dozen times in the space of four minutes, but one hardly notices
(including hand-clapping, doo-wop humming, ska guitar, organ, violin).
Sheff obviously cares about what he is saying, and while he wants to make it
as musical as he can, he also does not want to turn it into a baroque display
of sound.
Nowhere is this strategy more evident than in the mournful elegies of Savannah Smiles and John Allyn Smith Sails (that includes a sample of the
Beach Boys' Sloop John B).
The core of the album lies in songs such as the slow, sparse six-minute
A Girl in Port
that revolve around psychological analysis.
Rarely has rock music touched such profound and erudite chords.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Luca Battistini)
Gli Okkervil River sono un quartetto alt-country formato nel New Hampshire, i cui due primi album,
Okkervil River (2001) e
Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See (2002), hanno introdotto un'inusuale
combinazione di tastiere evocative (Jonathan Meiburg), ritmi forti (Zachary Thomas al basso, Seth
Warren alla batteria) e una voce malinconica (Will Sheff).
Gli arrangiamenti del gruppo sono maturati in
Down the River of Golden Dreams (Jagjaguwar, 2003).
Il lamento di It Ends with a Fall si affida ad un pianoforte
cantilenante, un organo gospel e archi da camera.
Narrazione e parti strumentali sono intimamente connesse, come provato dalla fisarmonica e dal
mandolino di Dead Faces.
La declamazione di Sheff ha! un tono colloquiale neutro e schietto, che omaggia appena i classici
americani (Dylan, Young o chi per loro). Sono gli strumenti a creare la magia.
In particolare, il vasto arsenale di tastiere di Jonathan Meiburg (Hammond, Rhodes,
Mellotron, Wurlitzer) e' il vero protagonista del disco, incastonando Blanket and Crib con un
sentimento epico, neoclassico (sottolineato da una sezione di corni), e spingendo la vivace Seas
Too Far To Reach con il suono caldo e domestico della Band.
Nel frattempo, gli archi rendono The War Criminal Rises and Speaks una solenne, virulenta
parabola sulla falsariga di Warren Zevon.
Raramente l'alt-country e' suonato cosi' vario e melodico.
(Translation by/ Tradotto da Antonio Buono)
Il quarto album degli Okkervil River, Black Sheep Boy (Jagjaguwar, 2005), rappresenta finora la migliore personificazione della loro estetica "roots-rock da camera". Offre anche migliore intuito nella struttura multi-strato della loro arte. Ci sono innanzitutto due prove di uno stile più estroverso, la trascinante e quasi pop The Latest Toughs e l’orecchiabile For Real. E poi c’è un secondo strato di canzoni che tocca corde più sottili: la tenera filastrocca A King and a Queen, la trotterellante canzoncina country-rock Song Of Our So-Called Friend, il letargico waltzer atmosferico Missing Children che chiude il disco su toni di infinita malinconia, e la solenna e quasi neoclassica, A Stone, a svettare sul resto. Ancora un altro strato consta invece dei lamenti rarefatti di In A Radio Song e Get Big, che irradiano le emozioni più introverse. A volte gli arrangiamenti sono come contrapposti alla voce: neutri, eleganti e inerti laddove il cantante è intenso, rozzo e febbrile. Il contrasto rende vivo il dramma.
Lo strato finale è costituito da un solo brano, ma di otto minuti, So Come Back I Am Waiting. Si tratta di un racconto in cui gli strumenti accompagnano realmente la voce straziata mentre pian piano si addentra in uno stato di terrore e più avanti si ridesta per librarsi in un epico atto di auto-ricreazione.
Will Sheff accresce ulteriormente la sua reputazione di compositore classico su The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar, 2007), una sorta di concept che si focalizza su due dicotomie: quella tra spettacolo e realtà e quella tra la vita e la morte. L’iniziale Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe, un brano veemente fradicio di epos alla U2 e propulso da una solenne figura di piano e da un ritmo tribale (che vanta anche un dissonante intermezzo) si erge quale manifesto esistenziale dell’album. In generale, la band suona più ruvida del solito, come si può sentire in You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man e soprattutto Unless It's Kicks. Gli arrangiamenti (specie trombe e archi) vengono attentamente studiati per conseguire il massimo impatto emotivo disturbando il meno possibile la narrazione. Una canzone come A Hand To Take Hold of the Scene cambia personalità una dozzina di volte in soli quattro minuti, ma difficilmente si nota (inclusi battito di mani, ronzii doo-woop, chitarra ska, organo, violino). Sheff naturalmente tiene a ciò che dice e pur volendolo rendere il più musicale possibile, evita di trasformalo in un barocco sfoggio del suono. Non può essere più evidente che nelle dolenti elegie di Savannah Smiles e John Allyn Smith Sails (che contiene un sample di Sloop John B dei Beach Boys). L’anima dell’album giace in un pezzo come la lenta, rada A Girl in Port che turbina attorno uno studio psicologico. Raramente la musica rock ha toccato corde così profonde ed erudite.
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