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Black Sheep Boy

by Okkervil River

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On Okkervil River’s first Jagjaguwar release, Don’t Fall in Love with Everyone You See, the band included a song entitled "Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas," a kind of re-imagining of Redding’s "I’ve Got Dreams to Remember." On the band’s newest release, they perform a trickier feat, as songwriter Will Sheff takes a lesser-known text — "Black Sheep Boy" by ‘60s folk-pop master Tim Hardin — and spins that short song’s imagery into a phantasmagorical evocation of the title character, including a brief cover and a couple of sprawling, surreal sequels. Black Sheep Boy is Okkervil River’s most ambitious and cinematic record yet, a love story and adult fable that evokes the mature songcraft of Leonard Cohen’s New Skin for the Old Ceremony, the sophistication of Scott Walker’s Scott 4, the shambling slow-motion bravado of Neil Young’s On the Beach, and the raw nerves and trick effects of Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers. It also echoes Lou Reed’s Transformer in that it is the band’s most playful and confident record by far, delighting in linguistic games and reveling equally in sheer pop, lacerating rock’n’roll and straight-up country weepers. The most fully realized and wildly adventurous Okkervil River album also introduces such previously foreign elements as children’s keyboards, digitally manipulated field recordings, and dirty splatters of distorted guitar. The longing might be keener, but the fun is funner – somebody has spiked the drinks, and there are at least two bullets in the Russian roulette chamber.

"We will float until we learn how to swim. Yes, that’s an In the Aeroplane Over the Sea reference, and yes, Okkervil River has that sort of mythical genius." – Magnet’s Eighth Best Record of 2003