{"id":40596,"date":"2007-11-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-stage-names\/"},"modified":"2007-11-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-14T00:00:00","slug":"the-stage-names","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/the-stage-names\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stage Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know you\u2019re drinking way too much coffee when all your new music comes not from music blogs or random iTunes excavations, but from Starbucks\u2019 Song of the Day or barista recommendations. <\/p>\n

Such is my latest find, <\/place><\/placename>Okkervil <\/placetype>River, suggested to me along with the new Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino. With their fourth studio album, the <\/place><\/city>Austin, <\/state>Texas indie rockers combine majestically sweeping instrumentation with their now-trademark hyper-literate lyrics courtesy of frontman Will Sheff, who stakes his claim as one of the best songwriters in the business on this disc. Unfolding over barely 40 minutes, The Stage Names <\/i>manages to cram volumes into just nine surprisingly compact songs, each shaded with the isolation and sheer, burning adventure of their never-ending years on the road touring. <\/p>\n

The album launches off with \u201cOur Life Is Not a Movie Or Maybe,\u201d which depicts the disappointing disparity between film\u2019s epic, poignant endings and contrived seamlessness and actual life. Sheff\u2019s vocals overflow with emotion, culminating in an urgent wail as the song barrels towards its close, all mercurial stabs of guitar, pounding drums and wonderfully disillusioned lyrics (\u201cWhen the air around your chair fills with heat, that\u2019s the flames licking\/Beneath the clock on the clean mantelpiece \/ it\u2019s got a calm clicking \/ Like a pro at his editing suite takes two weeks stitching up some bad movie.\u201d) <\/p>\n

Next up, \u201cUnless It\u2019s Kicks\u201d is an energetic, roots-rock number, brimming with driving riifs and destined to be classic lines like \u201cWhat gives this mess some grace unless it’s kicks, man \/ Unless it’s fiction, unless it’s sweat or it’s songs\u2026unless it\u2019s lies or it\u2019s love\u201d that characterize the pure necessity of music in a single pithy and catchy chorus. <\/p>\n

Brimming with raw, surprising imagery and threads of mandolins, woodblocks and cellos added to the core instruments, each song is an intricately crafted story grounded in clever reflections. <\/p>\n

Take the ingenious \u201cPlus One,\u201d for example, which neatly blends in references to numerically titled tracks (\u201cTVC15,\u201d \u201c50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,\u201d \u201c99 Luftballons,\u201d \u201c96 Tears,\u201detc.), sidestepping the trap of triteness with a tongue-in-cheek pomposity. Or \u201cSavannah Smiles,\u201d a downbeat, subtle track in which Sheff embodies the father of Shannon Wilsey, who later became adult film star <\/city><\/place>Savannah before committing suicide following a disfiguring car accident. <\/p>\n

Finally, closer “John Allyn Smith Sails” is a brilliant retelling of poet John Berryman\u2019s suicide; a sort of adaptation of the Beach Boys’ \u201cSloop John B\u201d with numerous allusions to Berryman\u2019s poems woven in, this track also features some of the album\u2019s best instrumentation, slow-burning and full of subtle flourishes. <\/p>\n

You know you\u2019ve got a great album on your hands when its only discernable flaw is ending too soon, and The Stage Names <\/i>is one of those rare, thrilling and accessible gems — easily a top contender for album of the year. Perfect music to drink a Pumpkin Spice Frappucino to, at any rate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8088],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-40596","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-okkervil-river","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40596"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}