Okkervil River

Review of "Satisfy You" / "Stark Miami Mines" split single with South San Gabriel in Magnet:
Oct./Nov. issue, 2002

Texas ain’t condemned yet. What can be done with the limited ingredients of emotive gloom-country never ceases to amaze. SSG is Will Johnson of Centro-matic on Casio/acoustic guitar, sounding like a rural undertaker whose tangled, impressionistic Robert Pollard-esque ruminations are delivered as crumbly, wizened laments. Okkervil River is Will Robinson Sheff’s coughing baby, and his roaring-violin-dappled song of devotion builds to the punchline that the speaker is paying his “spoiled rose” for love. Sheff’s Appendix Out-like voice is a toothless painkiller next to Johnson’s, but this single is a must-own for when the creek’s dried up and you’ve blown the termite wings off your turntable.

-William Bowers

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in Comes with a Smile:
Winter issue, 2002

The first full-length from this Austin, TX collective (following two self-released mini-albums) is an assured, occasionally superb entry into the diverse canon of work we like to summarise around these parts as Americana. What separates OR from the pack that aimlessly follows the Uncle Tupelo school of all things ‘alt’ is a more textured backdrop - replete with Wurlitzer, horns, Mellotron and strings alongside guitar, bass, drums and prerequisite pedal steel and mandolin - and a wry lyricism. Much like a folkier Bright Eyes, in fact, or an amalgamation with Lullaby for the Working Class. A more concise but equally adventurous wordsmith as Conor Oberst, principal songwriter Will Robinson Sheff’s narratives are similarly soul-bearing but less blatantly autobiographical – “We went out one night and took a flashlight / Out with these two girls Colin knew from Kenwood Christian / One was named Laurie, that’s what the story said next week in the Guardian / And when I killed her it was so easy that I wanted to kill her again” (Westfall). A more sombre response comes in Dead Dog Song, one of two tracks reworked from the first release, where “Sam, bless him, has died and left this home / The woodchucks running wild, the bushes overgrown… / He was only here fourteen years / And now the branches scratch my face and I can’t hold back my tears.” The songs never appear sentimental, though, and deal with the harsh realities of family and personal relationships. Musically, opener Red is as welcoming as an open fire, a vocal as rich as an Eitzel or a Dando, but the voice tells of bad blood between mothers and daughters – “I know I don’t deserve supervised sight of her / But each day becomes a blur without my daughter.” The snappily titled Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas is tucked away a track from the end, but is probably the album’s most beautiful moment. Returning home for the holidays, our narrator is reminded of a lost love “and a room … where I held you so tenderly / And where in summer I opened your letter to me”. Amid the cigarettes, rusty tires, plastic wrap and razors, Okkervil River offers up treasures aplenty.

-Matt Dornan

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in Rolling Stone:
June 20 issue, 2002

DEEP WATER:
I caught only the last two songs of Okkervil River's SXSW showcase in Austin this year; I left wanting a lot more. The quartet's second album, DFILWEYS (Jagjaguwar, CD) shows why. In a crowded field of young spectral-country bands, Okkervil River pine and crawl with enriched instrumentation (mellotron, mandolin, spoons, string bass, Wurlitzer organ) and a gripping cross of drowsy understatement and lightning bolts of anxiety, like Pavement bursting through the middle of REM's "Country Feedback". Singer-songwriter Will Robinson Sheff understands the medicinal properties of sadness; he's titled one song "Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas". This album, too, can help you through the cold, lonesome blues.

-David Fricke

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in Pitchfork:
April 2, 2002

It was the worst day of my life. I get home from the plant and there's my woman: rolling around in my bed with my best pal, Big Whitey. And there's my mutt sitting on the floor, watching them go at it with his stupid dog-grin. I just can't get that image out of my mind. Man, I flew into a crazy rage, stormed out to my 81 Buick and tore dirt right out of that greazy hellhole.

The only thing that helps this pain in my gut is the new album by Okkervil River. I don't know what you'd call their music-- alt-country or indie rock or avant-folk or some such crossbred super-genre. Calms the nerves, though. Sure, it's kind of a downer, but without hitting the gutbucket misery of real country. And Okkervil can also let fly, too: the best song on the album, "Lady Liberty," smokes like a raccoon in a chimney, with horns blasting behind singer Will Sheff as he moans about loving the wrong woman. "I can picture you inside some stranger's house/ Inside some stranger's bed/ You're trying to seem mysterious/ The covers pulled over your head." Ain't nothin' stings like the truth.

Okkervil River sounds like a loose outfit; their self-released 1999 debut, Stars Too Small to Use was raw, shambling stuff, but with this new record they're starting to pull it together. The songwriting is impressively poignant, and the music is as tight and comforting as any old noose: under producer and engineer Brian Beattie's wing, the band has filled out and arranged these songs beautifully with every southern-flavored instrument you could dream up-- mandolin, pedal steel, fiddle, organ, and strings and horns. The record maintains a nice, lush air, but manages to stay somehow raucous simultaneously-- it's ponderous indie rock and country charm frequenting each other's local haunts.

But while these guys may be rising stars, they're still looking for comfort and a little love, if the lyrics are any indication. Damned if "My Bad Days," for one, isn't as stark as they come: Sheff can sound like a man who's been beaten back to a lost little boy. "Dead Dog Song" is a mandolin-propelled tune with great, hokey lyrics ("He'd never been to church, so he doesn't have a soul"). And the guys even bring in Daniel Johnston to duet on "Happy Hearts," just coming straight out and pleading for what we're all after: "Unconditional love, why did you leave me?" Come on, guys, you're killing me.

But one song in particular got my attention: "Westfall," the account of a murderer coming to trial. As alt-country serial killer ballads go, this one has nothing on Jim White's "The Wound That Never Heals"-- but it's a good song about evil and murder, and it almost sounds convincing when these nice boys sing: "They're looking for evil/ Thinking they can trace it/ But evil don't look like anything."

So it's past two in the morning and I'm still driving, when suddenly I see someone by the side of the road-- a woman, hitch-hiking-- and damned if she doesn't look like, well... just like my wife on her best day (twenty years ago). I know it can't be her, but I'm transfixed. She's got her thumb out and though I know it's wrong, I decide to pull over. I swerve to the side of the road and let her walk up to my car. Satan was arm-wrestling for my soul, but this time the Lord won: I hit the gas and skidded away before she got to my door. She didn't look too happy, but hell, she doesn't know how close she came to having something awful happen to her, 'cause I know I'm still in a funny mood. Anyway, there isn't room enough in the trunk for a third body.

-Chris Dahlen

Recommended in The Onion:
March 7-13, 2002

Erroneously lumped in with the alt-country world, the Texas band Okkervil River seems more influenced by the otherworldly slowcore of bands like Sparklehorse. Okkervil River's second album, Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See, fills its spaces with lovely and languid sounds that which, though they may have vaguely country-ish signifiers, never come close to a twang.

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in Tower Pulse:
March 2002

What's this we have here? Waning twang with a woozy rhythm. Brittle-sounding guy at the mike. Occasional splash of banjo. Nope, it's not old-school Palace Brothers or one of Dylan's country detours. It's Okkervil River, an Austin band by way of New Hampshire, who've come from practically out of nowhere armed with a second album of just slightly warped narratives set to exquisite melodies and augmented with horns, strings, organs, whatever. And yet, Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See isn't as clunky as its title implies nor as cluttered as the instrumentation would suggest. It's a mostly spare, warm album that allows frontman Will Robinson Sheff to sing his sad, funny and finely detailed songs. It's a shockingly dexterous young band, able to master the waltzy ballad ("Kansas City"), pull off the folky bluegrass ditty ("Westfall") or go way up the country ("Dead Dog Song"). To top it off, they spirit Austinite Daniel Johnston out of seclusion to warble along on "Happy Hearts," a fittingly bittersweet punctuation mark on a splendid musical statement. Four stars.

-Richard A. Martin

The Austin Chronicle:
March 15, 2002

With a new Okkervil River album and a just-completed tour, as well as a SXSW showcase and second tour on the immediate horizon, one would think that Will Sheff, singer and guitarist for Okkervil River, has more than enough to do. He also writes for this paper's Screens section, and the Audiogalaxy Web site. His other band, Shearwater, plans to tour as soon as the dust settles from the Okkervil activity.

"I think if I get one more part-time job when the tours are over, I'll be set," says Sheff.

That's what it's like to live and make music in Austin nowadays. If anything can break the merciless cost-of-living cycle, it's Okkervil's new release, Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See (Jagjaguwar), a richly instrumented collection of songs that filter all manner of American music through a keen and unforgiving songwriter's mind. This is folk like you haven't heard it before -- ominous but accessible.

"The first album [Stars Too Small to Use] was stark and angular," says Sheff. "We've always wanted to scare people and make them a little uncomfortable, but this time we wanted to do that in a more sophisticated way, make there be beauty and comfort, then shoot it through with disquiet -- with off-putting and strange elements ...

"We decided to make this record the way we've always wanted to sound, with horns and strings, like soul music. That was the goal this time around, to make a record that had that embrace, that sounded like it was reaching out and giving you a hug."

And hug it does -- mercilessly, lovingly. The scarier side of folk and bluegrass has never been so appealing. Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See grows on you like Spanish moss, beautifully, overwhelmingly, undeniably, and possibly fatally. Enjoy it at your own risk.

-Christopher Hess

Alternative Press: From "100 Bands You Need to Know in '02":
Volume 16, Number 164

Okkervil River's singer/songwriter/guitarist, Will Sheff, writes CD reviews and features for Audiogalaxy.com's e-magazine. But unlike many music journalists who are unable to translate their talent for spotting derivative hack bands into creating listenable music, Sheff fronts a raggedly rocking avant-folk quartet. Okkervil River's stripped-down acoustic guitar, bass and drum arrangements are augmented by organ, mellotron, fiddle or the occasional blast of a horn section; and Sheff sings dark and tuneful odes to the dysfunctional (including the first-person account of a murder) in a voice that constantly threatens to drift out of key. Even though their songs about the inevitable misery of living are barely held together by drummer Seth Warren's sticks and brushes, Okkervil River make falling apart sound good.

-Kevin Grasha

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in MOJO
February issue, 2002:

It’s easy to imagine how Okkervil River’s move from New Hampshire to Austin, Texas might have helped main man Will Robinson Sheff’s forlorn, old-time muse. The Lone Star State’s enclave of sun-baked bohemia seems a more likely location from which to pen tales of backwoods murder (Westfall), depression (My Bad Days) and four-legged friends (Dead Dog Song). Singing with both the raw-throated urgency of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and the melancholic intimacy of Will Oldham, Sheff’s first-person narratives create a world full of regrets, lost loves and broken hearts. Under the weight of such downbeat subject matter Don’t Fall in Love… could have easily ended up mired in misery, but quality song-writing and storytelling rescues things from self-indulgent despondency, but sacrifices none of the bittersweet poignancy.

-Andrew Carden

Lazy-i/Omaha Weekly
February 27, 2002:

"DOWN BY OKKERVIL RIVER"

There are three reasons why people decide to write about music.

The first is for the free CDs -- that's the easy one. The second is the rather haughty and self-congratulatory reason of turning people onto music they would never have known about without you. It's a ridiculous reason, especially when you realize there aren't that many readers out there.

What's the third reason?

I never heard of the Austin, Texas, band Okkervil River before they got booked for their March 5 show at The Junction. I saw their name on a schedule of upcoming shows and hadn't paid it a thought, other than "What a weird name for a band." Out of the blue I received a copy of Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See in the mail from Okkervil River's record label, Jagjaguwar, and set it aside, meaning to get around to playing it. Then one Sunday morning (the most appropriate time to listen to this band) I gave the CD a spin. Then listened to it again. Then played it for a friend of mine, saying, "I never would have heard of these guys if it wasn't for this job. This is the reason why I write about music." The third reason, actually.

Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See is an amazingly beautiful CD. The band's one-sheet mentions Tindersticks, Arab Strap and Bright Eyes. I'm reminded of Simon Joyner, Counting Crows and, dare I say it, Will Oldham.

"We get compared to him a lot," said Okkervil River's primary songwriter and guitarist Will Robinson Sheff about the legendary mope-folky who headed Palace and now performs as Bonny Prince Billie. "When our first record came out, we were compared to Will Oldham savagely. That actually hurt my feelings. I'm not trying to do a Will Oldham impression."

The Will Oldham comparison isn't fair, really. Okkervil River is better than that, catchier than Oldham on his best day.

Their music is rural and slightly southern, more backwater than wheat field, with a nod toward slow bluegrass and dustbowl folk. Sheff, who says he doesn't like the term "alt-country" or the bands that play it, confesses a love for old-time Appalachian music. "I love old folk," he said about his influences, but then quickly added, "I love first-generation singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. I love Neutral Milk Hotel -- Jeff Mangum is one of today's best living musicians."

And yeah, he likes Will Oldham, who was one of the first modern indie-style folk singers he'd heard after leaving for college. "When I first heard him, it sounded like he was singing right to me. It blew me away." Sheff said.

When he met mandolin, electric/string bass player Zach Thomas and drummer/percussionist Seth Warren in high school at tiny Meredith, New Hampshire, Sheff said the three shared a love for old American folk. "Roscoe Holcomb, Skip James, Leadbelly, the Carter Family, Doc Watson, The Stanley Brothers. I love that music. It's always really spoken to me because I grew up in a small town where nature was a real controlling presence."

After going their separate ways after high school -- each attending a different college -- the three wound up back together in Austin in 1998 when they formed Okkervil River. A year later they recorded and self-released their first CD as a trio -- a stripped-down, rather dark effort called Stars Too Small to Live.

After touring, the band spent a year in the studio with producer Brian Beattie, who has worked with Dead Milkmen, Glass Eye and had just come off producing Austin legend Daniel Johnston's last album. Sounds like an expensive endeavor for a band whose lead singer makes a living writing for web outfit Audio Galaxy, while the other members work in a book store and write computer code. "Brian doesn't charge you by the hour," Sheff said. "You pay him a certain amount up front and he becomes a new member of the band. He's a family man, which means he doesn't bend around the band's schedule, you bend around his."

Sheff told Beattie he was after something completely different than the band's austere debut.

"I didn't want it to be stark," he said. "I told Brian I wanted the new CD to sound like soul, like an Al Green record. I really liked the very orchestrated, atmospheric bands like Tindersticks, but for our first record, there was only the three of us. We expanded our sound this time by adding whatever instruments we knew how to play and by pulling in people we liked from around Austin."

Thirteen additional players, including the multi-instrumentalist Beattie, contributed horns, strings, pedal steel and banjo. In addition, Jonathan Meiburg became the band's fourth permanent member, adding Wurlitzer and accordion to the mix.

Lyrically, Sheff also had something different in mind. "The last album dwelt on sadness," he said. "I wanted this one to be about love."

Unlike so many of today's indie artists whose lyrics are almost purposely vague, Sheff's lyrics are like documentary-style poetry, telling perfect little stories that deal with longing and loss, fear and coping, hope and regret, even mourning the loss of a family dog. The details are vivid, too vivid to be made up.

"The songs are all connected to things happening in my life," Sheff said, "but they're not biographical. I like to mess with the perspective. The more personal the song, the more likely I'll fictionalize it. I listened to a lot of Elvis Costello and like a well-shaped and composed song. I try to exercise control over it. I'm obsessed with this idea of being just poetic enough. I don't listen to rock to hear great poetry. I want the lyrics to seem real to me."

The album opens with the warm, Tindersticks-like "Red," a song about a lonely dancer separated from her child, with the line, "I know I don't deserve / Supervised sight of her / But each day becomes a blur / Without my daughter."

The haunting mandolin-driven murder story "Westfall" is as brutal as a Johnny Cash song with melody by way of Harvest-era Neil Young. Sheff said he wrote it around the lyric, "They're looking for evil / Thinking they can trace it / But evil don't look like anything."

"There were these murder cases in Austin where these two girls were working in a yogart shop and these three college guys went to rob the place and killed and mutilated them," Sheff said. "I worked for the state at the time and heard the details they didn't report -- how they cut them open and filled them with frozen yogart. They caught one of the kids that did it, and there he was, on TV, and I remember my co-workers looking at him and looking at him for the evil on his face. You wanted to see the evil, but it wasn't there."

"Dead Dog Song" is the most autobiographic track on the album. It's about Sheff scattering his dog's ashes among the skein of trees where the hound used to run, and opens with scattering trap brushes and a mandolin that sounds like a dog bounding through a forest, in and out of the light and shadow, jumping around the trees. It has the feel of a bluegrass holler, with the whooped-up line "Oh, It's all over / He's never coming back / There's no more roaming / He was only here / Fourteen years / And now the branches scratch my face / And I can't hold back the tears."

Throughout the CD's nine tracks, touches of horns, accordion, cello and violin blend seamlessly with the band's simple acoustic accompaniment, pulling everything together like kudzu covering a deep forest. Sheff and company will have their work cut out for them reproducing the sound with their four core members, including new drummer Mark Pedini.

Though the CD just came out Jan. 22, Sheff says the band is ready to record the next one this August. "We've been living with the songs on Don't Fall in Love… for a year and a half," he said. "We'll be playing some of the new stuff on the tour."

After this mini-tour that takes the band through the Midwest, Okkervil River will head out for three weeks of dates along the Northwest, then spend two weeks touring the West Coast, before they return to Austin and their day jobs.

"I don't want to get famous," Sheff said. "It would be really nice to have enough money that I didn't have to work at anything but music, enough money to buy organic groceries. Right now I can record, I have a label to put out my music and a guy booking our tour. What more do you need to be able to play your music?"

-Tim McMahan

From NYC's Other Music update.
February 13, 2002:

There is something unmistakably Texan about Okkervil River's "Dont Fall in Love With Everyone You See". Their country- inflected, densely orchestrated pop swings with a purpose. But even with the lush production, "Dont Fall In Love" sounds as if it were recorded on a porch, looking over the wide open Texas landscape. Utilizing an arsenal of instruments that includes pedal steel, Wurlitzer, mellotron, banjo, violin, cello and a complete horn section (not to mention the normal array of guitar, bass and drums), Okkervil River covers a wide range of territory, from introspective, dark country musings, to emotive and exuberant pop. But Okkervil Rivers sound is based on much more than crafty arrangements. Singer Will Robinson Sheff delivers with an enthusiasm that recalls Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, belting out densely lyrical passages that are both earnest and surreal. "Dont Fall in Love" is a gorgeous and totally captivating debut.

-Phil Waldorf

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in CMJ
January 28, 2002:

Austin-based goth-country quartet Okkervil River writes songs that simultaneously evoke both America's wide-open spaces and the claustrophobic loneliness that such grand existence at times inspires. These poles of stratospheric euphoria and bottomless depression are flip sides of the same coin, and the group's full-length debut Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See plays on both in lush, nearly twang-free, indie-country strains. The sweep of the strings, the moan of the pedal steel and the melancholy yearn of harmonies on songs like the desperate lover paean "Kansas City" and the self-defining "Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas" are the sounds of artful desperation, as inherent to America as cowboys and apple pie. But it ain't all stars 'n' stripes doom 'n' gloom. Austin pop savant Daniel Johnston adds vocal levity to a song called "Happy Hearts," and the music's (slight) bounce affirms Okkervil's acknowledgement that this not a completely dark ride - even if their songs sometimes forget this fact.

-Piotr Orlov

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in KindaMuzik
January 28, 2002:

Okkervil River are one of Jagjaguwar's latest recruitments. 'Don¹t Fall In Love With Everyone You See' is the band's second album after their self-released first one ('Stars Too Small To Use'). It's a hard job to typify this band: There are alt.country influences - which isn't a big surprise, being from Texas - but the sound also contains folk and indierock (or is this the exact definition of the term alt.country?). When an album starts off with "red is my favorite color / red like your mother's eyes / after a while of crying / about how you don't love her"... Well, things can't seem to go wrong from there on. 'Red' immediately made me crave for the rest of the album, on which Will Robinson Sheff presents a small story in every song. Most of the time he lives in the main character's feeling and translates that in his way of singing - almost screaming out of frustration over a failed relationship ('Lady Liberty') or sounding as depressed as a human being can in the chamber-pop song 'My Bad Days'. After my expectations rose from the first song, I couldn't help but be a little bit disappointed by the following few songs. They just don't have the same charm as the opening song. It's just a shock to go from Tindersticks-like pop to alt.country, although the songs still have an originality that most bands would be jealous of. Things even get better with 'Westfall', the fifth song, where the main character goes out with a friend and two girls of whom "one was named Laurie / that's what the story said next week in the Guardian" - Oops, I think I killed someone! Lyrical wit and a melody to die for: This makes my day. Indierock legend Daniel Johnston comes around on 'Happy Hearts' to do a duet. The lyrics are exactly what you might expect from a duet with Johnston - an innocent view on love ("Why must happy hearts break so hard?"). From the fifth one on, the songs are far above average, and the lyrics are more then OK. It's like with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy or even Belle & Sebastian: The lyrics aren't always as funny as the smile they put on your face. A dead dog "[had] never been to church / so he doesn't have a soul / he isn't waiting at the place / where all of us will go." Grieving over a dead dog gets you thinking strange thoughts! The album is closed with two beautiful slower songs. Lyrically, this is top-notch, the organic sound of the band and the narrative songs; all of this together makes it a real charming piece of work!

-Wilko van Iperen

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in the Austin Chronicle
January 24, 2002:

Like Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Okkervil River’s sophomore LP launches immediately into a coming-of-age story, balancing poetic lines with an undeniable emotional investment that sustains itself over the course of the entire album. Okkervil River and frontman Will Sheff are inspired, as is NMH’s Jeff Mangum, by the folk tradition of telling a story by song. Don’t Fall in Love with Everyone You See, the Austin fourpiece’s first effort for Bloomington, Ind. indie Jagjaguwar, represents a quantum leap forward. Opener “Red” is a strummed tale of emotional ruin and a mother’s pain. The pedal steel and harmonica of “Kansas City” form the sad, twangy shuffle that have won the band comparisons to Will Oldham’s Palace. Like his fellow Will, Sheff goes full-tilt at times, infusing each word, each phrase with a splash from the cauldron of passion lurking underneath. At key moments, that passion bubbles over and Okkervil River hits full stride. “Westfall” is a tale of high school murder, beautifully spiked by Zach Thomas’ mandolin, and is also the band’s biggest-sounding song thanks in part to the veteran production of Brian Beattie (ex-Glass Eye). Beattie brings in old pal Daniel Johnston for a memorable duet on “Happy Hearts,” like the rest of the album equally giving of trust and sincerity and suspicious of its reciprocation. As fine as it opens, Don’t Fall in Love with Everyone You See finishes up even stronger, with “Okkervil River Song,” an accordion-fed instant classic about the Northeastern countryside that lingers in the air after long after the last of the recorded bird chirps that caps this fine collection. FOUR STARS.

-Michael Chamy

Interview and article in the Austin American Statesman's XLent
January 23, 2002:

"RIVER WINDS FROM NORTHEAST TO AUSTIN"

Okkervil River leader and songwriter Will Sheff loves his former New Hampshire home. There's no question about that. The cold stillness of late fall nights, being surrounded by nature, the small-town ritual of playing with guitars for hours on end in the basement: All of it goes into Okkervil's songs.

The 25-year-old songwriter and his band have been Austinites for three years and change, but the Okkervil roots go back to Meriden, N.H., a town of, by Sheff's reckoning, "about 500 people."

"There were no clubs," Sheff says, "We would play in our basement and at shows at school." Much of that solitude worked its way into Okkervil's music.

"When you're growing up in a place like that, you're very humbled by nature," Sheff says. "In the late fall, when it would get really dark and really cold, there was this palpable sadness over everything. That had a huge influence on me and on everyone else in the band. With a lot of the songs on (our new album), before we played (them) we would say, 'All right: Halloween, dirt roads, late fall, darkness.' "

But the spare songs on "Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See" (Jagjaguwar), his band's second album of folkish, don't-call-it-alt-country indie rock, can feel like late nights anywhere a romantic, heartbroken chill is in air.

Which is fortunate, because while Okkervil may have its roots in the Northeast, its origin myth is pure Austin.

"I'd just graduated college and I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life," Sheff says. "I always had this idea of wanting to play music and I always thought that was really irresponsible and dumb." But Sheff and his high school pals had played music all through high school and college, and the bug wasn't going away. "One day I just had this revelation where I was like, 'You know what? I don't care. I wanna play music, I wanna be a failure, I wanna throw my whole life behind something that's ill-advised.' "

Sheff burned out on his college home in Minneapolis, and Austin was the perfect place to "be a failure." Fortunately, Sheff's pal and high school bandmate Seth Warren was willing to follow him down here -- where fellow high school friend Zach Thomas was already living. Okkervil River gelled soon after, releasing the self-pressed " Stars Too Small To Use" in 1999. (Though he appears on "Don't Fall," Warren has since moved to Berkeley, Calif. He's been replaced with drummer Mark Pedini.) Multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Meiburg joined prior to the first sessions for "Don't Fall," which ended up taking roughly forever. "We really wanna get cracking on the next record," Sheff says. "One of the big goals is make a record that nobody is going to call alt-country."

Yeah, about that pesky "alt-country" thing: While Austin's been good to Sheff, there are a few aesthetic potholes that need to be dodged on the road to transcendence. "There's this whole singer-songwriter alt-country thing in Austin that I think people identify us with and I wish we weren't," Sheff says, "It's not anything we do. We're all from the Northeast, we don't know the first thing about country music and I can't stand alt-country. I get compared to Will Oldham a lot, and we've decided that a lot of people can't tell the difference between Will Oldham's voice and a banjo."

No, Sheff's a folkie, through and through. "I really like all this old folk stuff like Leadbelly, and Skip James and Roscoe Holcomb, and folk songs with their potency and powerful metaphors like 'It's Trouble Running Though My Breast' and 'Tom Dooley.' So I always wanted to write like that." Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Jeff Magnum from demented pop reconstructionists Neutral Milk Hotel are also big heroes, and the latter is a dream touring partner. "Neutral Milk Hotel would be the ultimate," he says with an obvious grin in his voice.

And, like folk songs building on one another over time, Sheff also loves to weave allusions and outright references to earlier, popular song into Okkervil tunes. "Listening to Otis Redding at Home over Christmas" is an obvious example while, according to Sheff, " 'Kansas City' (on "Don't Fall") is a reimagining of the old song "Kansas City Blues."

And ultimately that's what Sheff wants people to take away from Okkervil River: a little bit of what he takes away from Skip James. "When I listen to the music that I'm deeply moved by, I feel like I want to be a better person, I feel lucky to be alive to be experiencing this thing that someone else made, that came though them and touches me," Sheff says. "I want people to feel the way that I feel when I listen to the music that I love, that the music made them feel more human and more connected to the world."

-Joe Gross

Review of Don't Fall in Love... in Big O.
January, 2002:

A band from Austin, Okkervil River’s music draws much inspiration from the appalachia folk traditions that have infused Will Oldham’s work in Palace Music. Eschewing Oldham’s turbid enunciation though, singer Will Robinson Sheff’s voice breaks with the sincerity of a young Paul Westerberg. And the songs resonate with the unmistakable narrative touch that offers an everyday glimpse of an unhappy deadened life. On the darker tunes, “My Bad Days” reads like a suicide letter while “Westfall” relates from a true event on the facelessness of evil. “Kansas City” grimly reminisces on the aspirations of a coke-addled girlfriend who wants to steal away to Kansas [Missouri – sic, Ed.]. Each track is laced with the suffering and dashed dreams of honest folk, but its streams of misery are also abound with the fortifying intent in Sheff’s heartfelt delivery, much like in the way he sings of how “I hear that song sometimes and imagine us much more than friends.”

Review of Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See in Delusions of Adequacy.
January 14, 2002:

I've never been a big fan of alt-country and that genre's trademark twang and western feel. That being said, this isn't really alt-country. At first listen, I thought it may be, but repeated listens have proven that Okkervil River's second full-length is a rich album as influenced by country as by rock and folk music, blending little bits of all three with some of the band's own unique flairs.

This Austin, Texas band gives you a little bit of everything on Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See. There are Johnny Cash-like folk moments, more sincere singer/songwriter style songs in the vein of Bright Eyes, some hints at a country or indie-folk influence, and more straight-forward mellow rock numbers. Throughout it all, Will Robinson Sheff's songwriting is strong and unique, almost storytelling in a Johnny Cash sort of way, and the host of unique instruments - including a variety of styles of organs listed - give the songs the band's own unique sound.

The album starts with one of its more folk-sounding numbers, "Red," which uses some odd, organ-like instrument to give it at times an almost fair-like feel to belay its slower, softer feel. By contrast, the slide guitar and melancholy delivery of "Kansas City" prompts the alt-country comparisons. More upbeat and bouncy, "Lady Liberty" shares some similarities with the Elephant 6 pop of bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, even using horns to a great extent. But it's songs like the morose "My Bad Days, with its moody violin and vocals, and "Westfall," with its guitar focus and Cash-like lyrics ("and when I killed her, it was so easy, that I wanted to kill her again") that show off the band's penchant for moody and oh-so-good folk-inspired songs.

On "Happy Hearts," indie-folkster Daniel Johnston adds his slightly screechy vocals to a nice mid-tempo acoustic track. More traditionally a bluegrass-style song, "Dead Dog Song" shows how well the band pulls off even this difficult style, with up-tempo guitar and banjo and strong vocals. Softer and toward the Bright Eyes side of the spectrum, "Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas" feels comforting like its title would suggest, and "Okkervil River Song" closes off with something of a theme-song, a light, bluegrass western-style song that's subtle and nicely rolling.

This is an absolutely wonderful release, one that transcends genres no matter how hard reviewers like I try to pigeonhole it. There are elements of everything here, but what emerges is tight musicianship, brilliant songwriting, and a nice mix of upbeat indie-rock songs and melancholy folk-inspired tracks. It's enough to make you re-think your standing on a variety of genres, if only these guys were performing them.

-Jeff

Review of Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See in Dream Magazine.
January 2002:

This is wonderful; full of wonder and real feeling. Built around the core of childhood pals Seth Warren and Will Robinson Sheff originally from New Hampshire, where they played in a series of bands together before they transplanted themselves to Austin, Texas and became Okkervil River. This four piece (Jonathan Meiberg and Zachary Thomas both play lots of things as do Seth and Will) outfit is augmented by a dozen additional players on various tracks, including very effective guest vocals by Daniel Johnston (on the heart rending "Happy Hearts"), and playing and co-production by ex-Glass Eye dude Brian Beattie. Sweeping swooning pedal steel guitar, and a sorrowful moody sadness that permeates everything like a meloncholy fog. Country rooted, and colored by dirt roads, folk forms and pop music as an artform. Mandolins shimmer like campfire light, and the sounds range from quiet whispers to outright outspoken. The sweet horn charts on "Lady Liberty" recall a looser noisy Lambchop. Haunted and human, with wit and plenty of stories to tell, and lives to glimpse in passing.

Review of Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See in Naughty Secretary Club.
January 1, 2002:

Eclectic, interesting, musically diverse - take your pick, all these descriptors are applicable to Okkervil River. Don't forget to throw in talented, engaging, coy and just plain good. Okkervil River encompass a myriad of descriptions and sounds, making no two songs exactly alike. Trying to decide if the 9 songs on Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See are folk songs, alt country, zydeco or murder ballads is half the fun.

The excitement of the guessing game never stops with Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See. Name that musical instrument is an endlessly entertaining game to play while spinning this disc. The list of guest musicians on this release reads like War and Peace as far as liner notes go. Random Orpheans specializing in mandolins, banjos, pedal steels, mellotrons, strings, horns and more. Fans of Daniel Johnston might opt to skip straight to "Happy Hearts" where he lends a vocal hand.

Another interesting aspect of Okkervil River (as if there were not enough already) is their lyrical content. Much of the lyrics read like precursors to unborn novels (might find yourself a publisher now that you found a good label). Songs like "Westfall" flirt with morbid content. Not in a blatant "I used to love her, but I had to Kill Her" GNR type way, more like they have taken pointers from the master Nick Cave himself. No one could ever croon about murder and make it sexy and intriguing like Mr. Bad Seed, except for now maybe Will Robinson Sheff.

Other points worth mentioning about Okkervil River and their stellar new CD include fascinating tid bits like: although the band calls Austin home, the release is being brought to the world via Indiana's Jagjagwar. Typically known for their more obtuse listens (Oneida), Okkervil River is a welcome more palatable addition to their roster. Also worth a mention is that 2 parts of this band make up Shearwater (read my gushing review of those guys next). The cover art and packing are impeccable, the recording captures the band perfectly, am I gushing again?

Like Shearwater, Okkervil River surprises me. Just when I think after 27 years I have a pretty firm grasp on what I like and dislike musically a band like Okkervil River, who is completely outside my musical box, comes along and throws a kink in things. Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See opens my eyes to new styles and sounds and expands my musical horizons. I guess I should thank them, as my father always told me "Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". Sounds to me like someone gave these guys the same advice and they took it to heart.

-Jennifer Perkins

The Austin Chronicle,
March 3, 2000:

"THE NEW SINCERITY"

Despite Renaissance physician William Harvey's medical revelation in the early 1600s that, contrary to centuries of assumption, the purpose of the human heart is not to produce blood but to pump and circulate it throughout the body, the queasy craft of bloodletting -- of purging poisons by opening veins and draining quantities of said life liquid -- continued until the 19th century. Nice. Well, it's the 21st century, and while medical innovations have, at least for the time being, won out, it's not too difficult to comprehend people's fascination with the grisly therapy. What beats a good bloodletting (at least metaphorically) for getting to the heart of matters physical and emotional? Austin acoustic indie-rock folk trio Okkervil River is certainly not unfamiliar with the concept of purging.

In their short life as our town's new standard bearers for the folk-rock implosion, they've managed to skate that elusive thin line between utter joy and unbearable pain and turn it into manifesto. Their lyrics abound with scenarios of murder, suffering, and just plain creepiness. Songs such as "Kathy Keller," coy with details, while at the same time loaded with them, let just enough crimson flow to evoke ideas, images, and further thought.

-- I have no appetite to do the things I did then, and won't do again. On my own, I'm all alone -- I try to make my affections known, but the evil's passed from one hand to another. Cynthia Keller in the cellar, don't tell me you didn't get my letters. --

The rivulet that would become Okkervil River formed when Will Sheff first met Seth Warren in grade school, and the two later hooked up with transplanted Texan Zachary Thomas via high school in the small town of Meriden, New Hampshire. The three shared weirdo status throughout their school years, so they did what any respectable group of high school outsiders does at times of social isolation: They formed a band. Sheff took up guitar, Thomas picked up the guitar even more quickly, and Warren took hold of the beat.

Then life happened, and like many at those crossroads, the three found themselves spread across the planet, with Sheff in Minneapolis, Thomas back in Texas attending school at UT, and Warren traveling between college and India. They reunited one summer in New Hampshire, at which point Sheff and Warren decided to relocate to Austin.

"I was going to be a failure and move to Austin," says Sheff, " -- and get fired from jobs and play in bands."

So the river moved south. Truth be told, there never was such a river in the New England state in the first place, nor is there such a river in these United States, despite its Americana-evoking name. The name comes from a Russian river in a Tatyana Tolstaya story. This little twist is about as close as the Okkervil boys come to irony.

"We really don't want to be ironic," insists Sheff. "Personally, we suffer from a toxic amount of [irony]. There are opportunities to make ironic decisions about our music, and we often have to hold each other back. But there's nothing in our music in 'quotes.'

"Sincerity -- " he says, pausing, "is more important than being glib."

Did someone say "New Sincerity"?

"I moved here for school in 1993," says Thomas, the band's tousle-haired bass and mandolin player. "I loved the Reivers and got to see Kim Longacre with Violet Crown."

Okkervil's bluegrass-churned morbidity may seem far afield from the jangle-pop of their forebear's combo, one of Austin's fabled "New Sincerity" bands, but the two groups do share that lyrical sense of evoking rather than telling.

"Our songs are not necessarily from experience," Sheff adds. "I've never murdered [anyone]. Our songs are dark but our personalities aren't like that."

"We all have our sides," mumbles Warren with a grin.

"We see beauty in ugliness," says Thomas, "That's something we all share in common, and that's why our personalities at first glance don't seem like the sorts that like to play murder ballads."

"[Our songs] are true in the way dreams are true," explains Sheff. "Instead of using as a model some sort of photo essay or documentary, you can use the realness of a dream. A dream is not intentional and censored. It can't be anything but itself. So it can't be anything but true and sincere."

"Oh, Precious," whether culled from dreams or not, certainly bears that mark. The song rollicks along like a 3é4 chantey penned by Harry Nilsson and John Lennon were they shut in a Palace on a Magnetic Field for a while with Lee Hazlewood. Talk about your dreamers. Close your eyes and you might see "plasticine Phaedras with looking-glass ties."

I fill in the holes in my vision with Dexedrine. The landscape spins sideways, the movies and magazines whisper as they hide on soft silky surfaces. Surely my neighbors and friends have their purposes here. --

"Sincerity and realism get confused," says Sheff, referring both to the general concept and the specific school of Realism. "There's this tendency [that says if] something's true, it must mirror real life."

He gets easily frustrated with what he calls "strident political activist folkies who make music." When pressed for examples, Sheff holds back and then cites John Gorka and Ani DiFranco as examples.

"[Realism] makes for boring art," he says. "It's too obvious and restrictive. I have no problem with these artists' messages. I just think that the way they approach serious issues deadens them. It's brash, obnoxious, self-satisfied. They're using their big Realist bulldozer and wiping out out all the subtleties. Art shouldn't tell people what to know."

Clearly, the band takes care not to "tell people what to know." In songs "He Passes Number Thirty-Three" and "The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion," Sheff seems to channel the brutal honesty and whispered wallowing of a young Alex Chilton circa Big Star's "Kanga Roo" or "Holocaust."

"There's something about going deep down into that part of yourself and rummaging around and facing it," theorizes Sheff. "Even though it's kind of weird or painful, it can be satisfying. It's like cleaning the house; it need to be done every now and then. If you don't, things get backed up, stagnant, calcified. There's the danger of stasis. It needs to be done in order for things to flow freely again."

The lyric that rings "truest" for Sheff was inspired by a moment in time at work.

"The people at work were watching the suspects of the yogurt shop murders on TV, and they were just straining to see the evil in their faces. But evil doesn't look like anything. And that's the lyric right there. That's repeated over and over in 'Westfall,' about a rich, privileged kid who murders this girl."

Evil don't look like anything. Evil don't look like anything. Evil don't look like anything.

Thomas laments, "People [try] to avoid unpleasantness. Like Will's parents always ask, 'Couldn't [your songs] be a little more pleasant?' And mine actually. My parents ask that, too."

It's calm and quiet at the otherwise pleasant Gaby & Mo's Saturday night, where Ten Speed has just finished its set. The crowd has thinned out a bit as Okkervil River messes with the small PA and decides to forgo any sort of soundcheck and just sort of wing it. With eyes closed, Will Sheff twists his lanky frame around the mike. His vocals have this sort of reedy Thom Yorke deadpan to them, but like the Radiohead lead man, Sheff can break into exorcising yowls when the occasion calls for it.

Meanwhile, Seth Warren sings his rhythm, his face contorting with each beat, and Zach Thomas grins sweetly, not maniacally. His boyish beach boy cut wags whenever he yelps a background vocal. The band plays their guts out despite the size of the turnout, ripping through most of the songs on their Stars Too Small to Use CD recorded in Austin last year. When Sheff finally opens his eyes, he's gazing at stars not his shoes and staring down whatever evil's out there or in his head.

They're excited to be playing what Warren and I have dubbed the "white trash" lineup on South by Southwest's Saturday night at Opal Divine's Freehouse. So far, the drummer has no idea what to expect.

"I have no horror stories about SXSW to relate," he says, cautiously. "So right now, I'm just happily naive."

Perhaps, by this time next year, the horror stories will be in need of a good letting. After all, what beats a good bloodletting?

--Kate X. Messer

Review of Stars and the "bedroom ep" in Under the Influence:

It's been said more times than I even care to imagine that we are our own worst critics, but I don't think having become a cliche makes the words less true any more than a Top 40 artist going triple-platinum validates that person as a musician. So when the members of Okkervil River say that their first release, the six-song "bedroom" EP, is actually painful for them to hear, I try to keep that in mind and put myself in their shoes.

My shortcoming is that I can only come up with one on their part: the EP was recorded at home on rented equipment, and you can hear evidence of this by listening closely or on headphones. I can see how that would be painful simply because the songs don't sound as good as they could — and ought to — but I think it's far more important that those songs still come off as solid and memorable, from the panting opening ode of "Dead Dog Song" to the unflinching questioning of "Happy Hearts" ("Why must happy hearts break so hard?").

They're a fine introduction to a band with a lot to say and a great way of saying it. The songs are almost literary in quality, telling stories that are compelling and sad and often morbid, fitting because their name was drawn from the pages of a Tatyana Tolstaya story. Okkervil River is an Austin, Texas, trio playing an irony-free blend of folk, punk, rock and bluegrass. Maybe this is what is meant by the "alt-country" label but that term always sounds to me like music for people who don't want to admit they like country or don't want to be associated with popular country music. This isn't country music, nor is it trying not to be; it's Okkervil River. And it's good.

Stars too Small to Use follows up the bedroom EP with seven studio-recorded songs that combine skilled musicianship, arresting lyrics and melodies that inevitably get stuck in your head. The EP opens with "Kathy Keller," a fast-paced tale of murder and love and loneliness that goes from sing-songy to desperate and pleading in the span of just over three minutes. "Auntie Alice" is bittersweet, skipping along as lead vocalist Will Sheff slowly inks an image of the title character in all of her eccentric glory only to watch her fade out to a familiar telephone operator message: "'The number you have dialed is not in service,' it said. 'Hang up or dial again.' Auntie Alice, have you found your palace yet?" There's a cleverness to the songs, not in a precocious or bright-eyed look-what-I-can-do sort of way, but in the connections between ideas and images, the intelligent wordplay that aims more to get a point across than to display wit. Metaphors leap from simply poetic to startlingly true from one listen to the next, never losing sight of the band's peculiar dark beauty.

"Oh, Precious" is a bizarre highlight because it's such a straightforward bluegrass waltz, Zach Thomas' mandolin leading the listener down this spiral of paralyzed despair that what seems permanent today could be dust tomorrow. It's impossible not to be struck by the lyrics: "I fill in the holes in my vision with dexedrine / the landscape spins sideways, the movies and magazines / whisper as they hide on soft silky surfaces / surely my neighbors and friends have their purposes here."

"The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion," "For the Captain" and "Whole Wide World" fall more in the vein of pop and follow a similar pattern of starting out fairly sedate and leaving your eyes wide and startled by the time the final notes cease ringing. The songs' arrangements and melodies and vocal harmonies see to that — every time I hear "The Velocity of Saul" I realize again what an amazing song it is. "For the Captain" hits you with a barrage of words that instantly turn into vivid pictures with the perfect cacophonous backdrop of Seth Warren's drumming:

"when you meet me in the garden / with your wings all dipped in cedar / all these spirits brushing past me / brushing past me in the ether / say, 'all this is window dressing / all you are is flimsy curtains / you will flame up with a word from us / and won't know that you're burning.'"

"He Passes Number Thirty-Three" took a long time to catch my attention because it's the last track, because it's the longest, because it takes its sweet time to pick up steam, because it's a plain old love song — but it also shows exactly why Okkervil River is such a great band. This love song has the potential at any moment to become a cliche, but instead of becoming sappy or trite, it simply remains honest and sincere because Sheff sings like he means it. "Leave it to me to not speak when I pass you on the street. Leave it to me to feel weak. Leave it to me, number thirty-three, leave it to me." Because you never know which one you'll fall in love with — or which one you would have — unless you're willing to take a chance.

And that goes for music as well.

-- Sienna

Review of Stars in Mazaru.com:

Is there any genre as easy to get wrong as alt.country? Sure, if it's done well you get the haunting sounds of Uncle Tupelo, Palace, and Lampchop...but alt.country is also responsible for one of the saddest images in all of musicdom: some shitheel from, like, Minneapolis wearing boutique rodeo duds and singing faux-country diddies about fried chicken and racetracks while some girl in a tired Daisy Duke outfit prances around and makes single entendres about her "pussy." Ugh...I guess some people are into it, but I'm not amused by college boys making fun of the poor. Bands like that would put on minstrel shows if they thought they could get away with it.

Luckily, Okkervil River falls firmly in the first camp, and was one of the first bands to convince me there was good free mp3s among all the sub-demo quality music on the web. I found this three-piece Austin band by searching for Palace on mp3.com (no, I'm not dumb enough to think Will Oldham would be putting mp3s up on that site; searching for your favorite bands on mp3.com is a good way to find bands who think they're similar artists).

Though I see the similarities with Palace --particularly in the vocals' soaring and cracking intensity--Okkervil River definitely have their own sound and approach to music. For one thng, they're a very literate band (the "why did we choose this again?" name comes from a story by Russian writer Tatayana Tolstaya), with impressionist lyrics like "little needles of sodium unstitch the seams of the sky."

Every song here is a keeper, full of passion and joy. Be sure to grab "The Velocity Of Saul [...]" and especially "He Passes Number Thirty-Three," which overcomes a potentially too-clever bit of wordplay to become a genuine expression of unrequited longing.

While you're downloading, visit the band's real website for their hilarious band bio. It begins when the members of the band were fourteen and includes the freshman-year admission "By then I had already become a tremendously arrogant person."

I know this is all starting to sound like payola, but really...these are seven great songs from a promising band. I can't wait to hear more from them.

Review of Stars in Salt For Slugs:

Okkervil River is a three piece that brings many bands to mind. Violent Femmes, Split Lip Rayfield, Uncle Tupelo, Palace & Jeff Buckley to name a few. "Stars Too Small to Use" is a seven song DIY release with much integrity. Drawing from the No Depression vein of music it touches upon many styles. I'm a sucker for good melody and the use of eclectic instruments. "Oh, Precious" was one of my favorite cuts. "Auntie Alice" also stood out as a sleepy rocker. Good lyrics, great musicianship, awesome band. Good things will happen to these guys. Buy the CD and support people who can actually play. If you like Limp Bizkit pull yer head out of yer ass and regroup with Okkervil River.

-- brian

Review of Stars in The Austin Chronicle,
December 3, 1999:

In this age of syrupy-sensitive singer-songwriters and prettified cookie-cutter country superstars, we tend to forget that folk and country music used to be creepy -- scary even. Austin trio Okkervil River remind us of this fact, as the group's visceral folk music kidnaps Will Oldham and Michael Gira and forces them on a midnight excursion to exhume the graves of Leadbelly and Nick Drake. The frantic avant-country of "Kathy Keller" heightens the effect of the dour and plodding "The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion," and from there the mood descends. The lyrical allusions and phrases that punch through the wall of acoustic speculation are harsh and puzzling, abrasive and bracing. There's lots of smarts in these songs. The only drawback is that, like the Palace contingent, however undeniable the passion and intelligence behind the songs, it's not always the most enjoyable music to listen to -- not because it's too scary, but because the commendable ideas that build the songs, exemplified in the breakdown at the end of "For the Captain," are often more ambition than realization. Stars Too Small to Use, however, is a debut that doesn't allow for a passive listen -- and there's certainly no abundance of that in folk music these days. THREE STARS.

-- Christopher Hess

Review of Stars on Audiogalaxy.com:

If Palace's Will Oldham were to write a song about a fictional discussion of Russian poetry held between The Clash and Woody Guthrie, it could only sound like Okkervil River. Folky and intellectual, yet somehow still steeped in the post-punk trappings of Indie Rock, this trio, recently relocated to Austin, Texas via New Hampshire, makes music that is introspective, painstakingly emotional and utterly endearing.

Songs like "For the Captain," with its staccato beat, rhythmic phrasing, and plaintive, poetic lyrics sung in the pained wail of a lost, country soul, seem to be the product of a maturity well beyond songwriter Will Sheff's twenty-something years. Such lyrics as, "When you meet me in the garden/ with your wings all dipped in cedar/ all these spirits brushing past me/ brushing past me in the ether/ say 'all this is window dressing/ all you are is flimsy curtains/ you will flame up with a word from us/ and won't know that you're burning,'" are cryptic yet evocative, indicating a wealth of emotional meaning hidden beneath their undeniably ear-pleasing surface.

Okkervil River's sound, replete with mandolin and an occasional accordion, is classic but hip, sounding very much like Drag City's cult icon Will Oldham and his various Palace projects. That's not too bad of a sound to imitate, especially when imitation emerges as honestly and sincerely as does OR's music. There's room enough in the fickle, Indie-Rock world for more than one pained, countryfied, wise-beyond-their-years, hipster-folk-rock band. Check out these songs, they're more than worth your time, and, while your at it, peruse Okkervil River's website. It's well designed and chock full of lovingly rendered poems, dreams and drawings.

-- Robert Whiteman

Digitalcity.com:

Since its inception in late 1998, Okkervil River has gone from a series of noisy household jams to a hard hitting folk-rock quintet/trio, complete with some seriously depressing yet incredibly poetic lyrics done by lead singer Will Sheff. Additional members include drummer Seth Warren and bassist/mandolin player Zach Thomas, as well as frequent appearances by Jonathan Meiburg, who plays banjo and accordion. The group has recently added violinist Scott Blesener, which makes for a gorgeous, filled out sound that compliments Sheff's lyrics beautifully. These guys are really talented, so if you're looking for a typical night of high volume garage music, you'd best go elsewhere.