Okkervil River - I Am Very Far

 
Okkervil River - I Am Very Far
Genre: Emo/Indie
Rating: 5/10

Following a short stint last year as a backing band for the legendary Roky Erickson Will Sheff and his band return with I Am Very Far. The band have been through a few lineup changes since their last effort in 2008 most notably the departure of Jonathan Meiburg who not only contributed musically but as a secondary vocalist. Meiburg has seen his fair share of critical acclaim for his now full time project Shearwater so the loss of such a talented musician was bound to impact on this, the bands sixth full length album.

Okkervil River first came to the attention of the music press in 2005 when they released their critically acclaimed concept album Black Sheep Boy. The bands mix of classical folk instrumentation, angsty emo moodswings and sharp lyricism proved a massive hit with critics all around the board. Since then very little had changed in terms of the bands dynamic until this latest offering. Whilst many of the key components of the band are still present, Sheff's shakey Conor Oberst style vocals and punchy acoustic guitar stabs, stylistically the album is quite different from previous outings. Whilst the bands previous albums had strong themes and narratives from start to finish this new album sees them lean more towards ambiguity. The songs really come in two styles on this record the repititious and punchy and sparse melancholic ballads. "The Valley" is a great example of the former it sees the usual thumping rythm march from the start through the whole song relenting for nothing whilst guitars and violins swoop in at various junctures to attempting to prevent the whole thing being mundane. The slower tracks like "Lay Of The Last Survivor" make up the better half of the album with a more subtle blend of acoustic guitars and piano work avoiding the somewhat monotonous percussion of other tracks. Unfortunately the chaotic stabs of guitar and violin do too little to prevent many of the tracks from blurring into obscurity. Whilst a handfull of songs show promise unfortunately the album as a whole disappoints offering no more than 3 or 4 memorable tunes.

Overall this is deffinitely not the band's strongest work to date. The level of repitition slowly grates and there is too few solid tracks to make this a good album. My advice would be to try before you download this to avoid the filler.

Download: "Wake And Be Fine" "Lay Of The Last Survivor"