Okkervil River
(Jagjaguwar)
The follow-up to last year's The Stage Names is another wild-ride discourse on the funhouse mirror of celebrity and its entourage of trappings - velvet ropes, fan clubs, green rooms and groupies abound. Will Sheff's nesting doll narratives fire big sloppy anthems and balladeer dramas about self-important singer-songwriters, magazine models, gay glam rockers, and anyone else who was ever put on a pedestal or aspired to be (and those who put them there).
Sheff and recent Okkervil alumnus Jonathan Meiburg deliver the rousing duet "Lost Coastlines," whose driving rhythms embody a touring band's psychic rootlessness, and Memphis soul-horns color "Starry Stairs," sequel to TSN's "Savannah Smiles." "Pop Lie" fizzes with furious keys and guitars like early Elvis Costello, and its chorus about a "liar who lied in his pop song" resonates because Sheff's been on both ends of the myth-making equation, yet seems powerless to stop making impassioned music in spite of the baggage.
Standout Tracks: "Lost Coastlines," "Blue Tulip" JOHN SCHACHT
