(Jagjaguwar)
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Will Sheff's entire career with Okkervil River has been a struggle of discovery and expression; their albums have always been glorious messes, overreaching but no less felt for their flaws. The Stage Names in particular is alternative rock at its cerebral best, literate and precise yet far too fucked up to fully comprehend. Sheff has always seemed an appealing eccentric waiting to break out of his overly mannered or carefully inexpressive shell. For him, I Am Very Far -- the band's elaborate, difficult, sprawling new record -- is an unparalelled triumph, the revelation of his accomplished, unencumbered voice at last. Even if he gives vent to less raw emotion here than hardcores might prefer, he's never impressed more or so easily.
But the shifting, intriguing songs he's written don't necessarily coalesce with the ornate arrangements he and the band provide here. If anything, they sound like they could stand a bit more modesty. Within a few seconds of the album's opener "The Valley," a completely unnecessary high-octane drum sound has nearly overtaken the stage, turning a pleasing, complex folk-rock number into some sort of vaguely embittered anthem, Arcade Fire ten years in the future. While one mustn't doubt that these songs would fall together thrillingly in the band's live show, and it's easy to get a spark of delight from hearing the band navigate through these intricate walls of sound (dig the Wrecking Crew mystique on "Wake and Be Fine"), a suspicion that a minor gulf separates Sheff's ideas from their execution does permeate. "We Need a Myth" (already demonstrably superior in live arrangements, courtesy Youtube) has U2-level melodrama slathered all over its gentle yearning, and potentially graceful starkness in "White Shadow Waltz" gets buried under a weirdly tentative tower of echo and noise that nearly shrinks Sheff's thin vocal down to nothing; drum fills and strings inject busy drama the song is good and smart enough to eventually overcome. Eccentricities like the Talking Heads-riddled "Your Past Life as a Blast" sound either wildly inappropriate or obliquely impressive with the slick, panoramic production style in use here; it's hard not to long for the canned grandeur of Destroyer's Kaputt.
Still, even if I Am Very Far comes off as a slightly botched experiment, this doesn't interfere with basic enjoyment of the album. No doubt it's a relief to hear an established band so prepared to fuck around and fuck up, to release something so much at odds with what their fan base is probably expecting, and fans of Big Star circa Third will nod in loving appreciation at the discordant fall-to-pieces of "Show Yourself," for which Sheff's most psychodramatic singing is almost magically suited. And there are other all-around exceptional tracks here: "Hanging from a Hit" has the arranged subtlety and shimmer one wishes had been in wider practice across the album. "Piratess" is one of the band's most impressive songs to date, a dead-on Bowie imitation with a wickedly fiery edge. And although its chorus oversells itself a bit, a production fault as much as a performance one, "Rider" is a driving delight.
It can take years for a singer like Sheff to train us away from the way we've long heard his voice, to treat his more emotionally complex moments with the seriousness afforded his screeching, struggling anger (witness fan reaction to John Darnielle's conversion to balladry), so it's a sign of hope on this record that features his strongest vocals to date that he pulls off a Rhett Miller / Ray Davies ballad with chutzpah on the countrified pop tune "Lay of the Last Survivor." Of the options presented here, the Bowie lift aside, I could most easily live with this being The Future of Okkervil River. His synthpop swagger on "Past Life" is quite ingratiating, too. But "Piratess" is still my first choice. Assuming chaos is where Okkervil wants to head, Ziggyisms are a far better match than the creaky Appalachian barbershop harmonics of exhausting closer "The Rise," second only to Iron & Wine's "Your Fake Name Is Good Enough for Me" as the year's most interminable LP climax. And the goddamn flute. Yes, "Caroline, No" had flutes. This isn't "Caroline, No." Don that glam rock makeup now, Mr. Sheff.
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