Okkervil River: The Stage NamesJagjaguwar: 8/7/2007
Two years ago, Okkervil River's previous album, Black Sheep Boy, quickly became one of my all-time favorite albums ever made. When I first read about the impending release of The Stage Names a few months ago, I tried to curb my excitement. I feared that the new album wouldn't accomplish anything near the beauty of its predecessor and that I would be disappointed. Much to my delight, The Stage Names has far surpassed my lowered expectations. Though Black Sheep Boy is still my favorite Okkervil River album, The Stage Names comes in a close second.
While Black Sheep Boy alternated between crushing disillusionment and self-righteous rage, the mood on The Stage Names is hope not fully extinguished by disappointment. Its themes are unrealized dreams of fame, delusions of grandeur, theater as escape, and self-reinvention. Will Sheff's wit has grown even more formidable since Black Sheep Boy, judging poets and porn stars on equal footing. The album's climax and finest moment is "John Allyn Smith Sails," in which the 1972 suicide of poet John Berryman is strangely recast as triumph courtesy of a surge into the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B." Like its predecessor, The Stage Names is a smart, scathing, compassionate record that's among the most beautiful ever made.
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