Okkervil River – The Lost Coastlines – MP3 Review

16 August 2008, Allan @ 5:15 pm Okkervil River The Lost Coastlines MP3 Review

Okkervil River is becoming one of my favorite bands, with their last two albums, Black Sheep Boy and The Stage Names being absolutely amazing albums. The latter of which was my #3 album of 2007 and quite deserving of such honor. Okkervil River with their weird pronunciation of their name (like you’re hawking up some spit) makes the genre of alt-country cool.

The Stage Names was barely a country album, with it being more straight up alternative rock mixed in a few acoustic tracks then Black Sheep Boy, which displayed Okkervil River’s seemingly folk/alt-country roots. Definitely a big difference between both albums.

The Stand Ins was meant to be a double disc accompanying The Stage Names (it’s not hard to the see the relevance in names). Like good bloggers, it’s better to split up your work into pieces provided you are giving enough in each post (in this case Okkervil is giving more then their fair share) yet you can bring that much more attention instead of jamming too much into one article.

Okkervil River had a lineup change with Jonathan Meiburg leaving for Shearwater (in which lead singer Will Sheff is a member of). There’s not much change with their first single off the Stand Ins as “Lost Coastlines” is an awesome track. It’s reminiscent of Okkervil River, 5 minutes long and as dense as you can get. It starts off with some banjo strumming to introduce the track and there is some random picking across the entire song. Will Scheff is up to same old thing with his lyrical genius and his semi-wailing voice. The latter being just at the start of course, it hits true greatness when (I believe) Jonathan Meiburg guests and adds his vocals taking a deeper voice than what is typically found on Shearwater. I think at this point, I start feeling sad…Okkervil River could be that much more amazing with Meiburg still in the band. Meiburg and Sheff play off each other perfectly which we really haven’t seen on previous singles. Add in random pianoing and trumpets toward the 4 minute, you’ve got icing on the cake. A lot of the song is “la la la la la” but I don’t mind nor find myself wanting it to end.

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