GENRE | LITERARY FOLK
VERDICT | MOODY TALES
LABEL | JAGJAGUWAR
RELEASE | 5.10.11
Okkervil River lead singer and songwriter Will Sheff is a master of lyrical finesse. He was nominated for a Grammy for “Best Liner Notes” for Roky Erickson’s new album (which he also produced) and is loved for his larger-than-life concept albums. And while Sheff still weaves epic yarns on I Am Very Far, this album is less like a literary folk novel and more akin to a collection of short stories told with big, dense sounds.
There are mournful oboes on “Lay Of The Last Survivor” and heroic strings on “We Need A Myth,” though the album opens with a frenetic pace with the moody march, “The Valley.” I Am Very Far never quite settles on a stride, but as a fragmented record of dark, often volatile and complex tracks it is brilliantly disorientating, the kind of sounds and stories you don’t mind listening to over and over again to understand.
OKKERVIL RIVER
WED 6.8.11
ROYALE
279 TREMONT ST.
BOSTON
617-338-7699
7PM/$18 ($20 DAY OF)
ROYALEBOSTON.COM
OKKERVILRIVER.COM
