{"id":40684,"date":"2008-01-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/black-sheep-boy\/"},"modified":"2008-01-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T00:00:00","slug":"black-sheep-boy","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/black-sheep-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Sheep Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Really, there\u2019s no better way to describe this album, the fourth from Austin<\/st1:city>, Texas<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> indie rockers Okkervil<\/st1:placename> River<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>, than intensely insane; from frontman Will Sheff\u2019s caterwauling, nearly unhinged vocals, to his perpetually poignant narratives, Black Sheep Boy <\/i>is all pure, unbridled, hysterical insanity from start to finish, and it\u2019s nothing short of wonderful. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The album itself is refreshingly ambitious, centered thematically around 60s folk musician Tim Hardin, who penned the album\u2019s title track while visiting his family in his hometown. During the visit, the reformed junkie was offered heroin, resuming the addiction that would eventually kill him in 1980.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Stemming from its crisply stunning folk-pop opener \u201cBlack Sheep Boy,\u201d which stays fairly true to the original\u2019s sparse acoustic accompaniment and evocative vocals, the album\u2019s remaining tracks revolve around the allegory of the Black Sheep Boy as he is unloosed into the world and attempts to achieve some semblance of humanity, charted throughout by Sheff with an aching poetic precision. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Cleanly contradicting the warm swelling piano of \u201cBlack Sheep Boy,\u201d \u201cSo Real\u201d is instead overflowing with energy. Sharp stabs of guitar and a tightly wound bass line punctuate a soaring, near-violent vocal delivery as Sheff repeats the words \u201creal\u201d and \u201creally\u201d to create a sort of chilling haze, our lives numbed stemming from an obsession with reality. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the warm pop beat of \u201cBlack\u201d seems at odd with scathing lines like \u201cBut if I could tear his throat \/ and spill his blood between my jaws and erase his name for good \/ Don\u2019t you know that I would?,\u201d unfolding the bleak tale of a man struggling to connect with his lover who was abused as a child. Yet Sheff\u2019s electric energy, all ratcheting frustration and ardent devotion, coupled with the track\u2019s jangling keyboards and bouncing bass, turn it into a subtle, if somewhat twisted, love song.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Black Sheep Boy <\/i>is brilliant in its dynamism, propping the propulsion of \u201cBlack\u201d against tracks like \u201cGet Big,\u201d a swaying, downbeat duet with Amy Annelle that chronicles a lover\u2019s unthinking infidelity in her attempts to become more adult-like. Similarly, the sparse, shuffling beat of \u201cA Stone\u201d belies its despairing lyrics: \u201cYou love white veins \/ You love hard grey \/ The heaviest weight \/ The clumsiest shape \/ The earthiest smell \/ The hollowest tone,\u201d Sheff croons to describe a would-be lover who is drawn instead a cold-hearted man. His voice is forlorn against flickers of piano, yet such palpable despair is all the more beautiful for its bare humanity.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the epic \u201cSo Come Back, I Am Waiting\u201d brings the allegory to its incredible, menacing climax: \u201cHe lifts his head, handsome, horned, magisterial \/ He\u2019s the smell of the moonlight wisteria \/ He\u2019s the thrill of the abecedarian,\u201d Sheff sings, his vocals-slow-burning against crescendoing horns and swelling strings, driving the track towards its redemptive finale.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Black Sheep Boy <\/i>is a truly unparalleled album, achingly beautiful in its sustained dynamism and complexity. It stuns on first listen, and only continues to reveal deeper layers, ultimately standing as a triumph of the human spirit itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8088],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-40684","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\/40684","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=40684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40684"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}