It doesn’t feel like a year, but we just double checked and its true: We excitedly evaluated The Stage Names late last July. Now, 12 months and change later, Will Sheff & Co. are back with The Stage Names‘ sequel and the band’s fifth full-length, The Stand-Ins. As the skeletal artwork and Sheff himself suggested, the new collection connects to its predecessor, continuing, echoing, and extending the story. You get more self-reflexive meta along the lines of the older “Title Track” in “Blue Tulip,” etc. “Starry Stairs” is the continuation of the Savannah-themed (dead porn star, not southern city) “Savannah Smiles.” The first proper song “Lost Coastlines” also continues its predecessor’s seafaring themes and metaphors. This standout, which looks at the often turbulent waters that face a band, features the voice of the departed Jonathan Meiburg, who left the band to concentrate on Shearwater’s bird and water songs. It’s a poignant, rollicking farewell. One thing we’re not clear on: How are the characters in these songs — the ostensible stand-ins — any different than those with bona fide stage names? As far as we can tell, they all seem equally lost, confused. Maybe they’re watching from the sidelines?
Outside of Sheff’s lyrics, there are three instrumental interludes: “Stand Ins, One” (ambient, rising instrumentation, the opening swell), “Stand Ins, Two” (poignant. moody guitars and strings and things) and “Stand Ins, Three” (swelling stringed closure). They work as pauses or breaks, maybe offering scene changes or distance between a track and the one that follows it. They don’t seem necessary, but they are nice cinematic touches.
As far as The Stand-Ins‘s players, we get a varied lot. There’s the rich, but uselessly dabbling in “Singer Songwriter”: It’s “all in your hand,” Artaud’s on the bookshelf, the thesis about the Gospel of Thomas has been written, the experimental film’s been shot, but “your world is gonna change nothing.” (Then that “your” becomes a self-indicting “our.”) The song features an insightful line about a flawed film, how “its flaws were what made us have fun.” This notion of flawed beauty pairs well with “Blue Tulip,” a song about the bittersweet stress of being a successful musician: “They’re waiting to hate you / so give them an excuse / … they say that it changed you,” etc. Fittingly, it ends with a dramatic instrumental exeunt. You know, rock-star stuff.
We get more music-industry meta in “Pop Lie,” a song about words and music calculated to make you sing along. (Like the song the band’s currently playing, of course.) We see the life of a groupie/someone in love/lust with someone in a band in the moving “On Tour With Zykos.” (As far as we can tell, there’s nobody named “John” in the actual Austin band Zykos, but no doubt they do on tour.) From the point of view of a spurned or lost or left-behind lover of a touring musician, even if you’re not on tour with the band, you sorta are.
Things get more off-stage personal in bouncy, countrified “Calling And Not Calling My Ex.” The protagonist is faced with a jealous, distant J Geils “Centerfold” conundrum (“With out-streched hands / now she commands a famous figure / for every picture”). As you might expect, though it’s more moving — sorta like Raymond Carver writing the vignette, not, well, J Geils.
Interestingly, Bruce Wayne Campbell closes this one out via “Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea Hotel, 1979″ vs. The Stage Names‘s John Berryman in the Beach Boys and sailing referencing “John Allyn Smith Sails.” Very different artists, very different deaths. Campbell was an openly gay, alien-themed glam rocker who didn’t live up to huge expectations, ended up singing cabaret at small parties under the name Cole Berlin. Suffering from AIDS, letdowns, he killed himself in 1983. “Bruce Wayne…” the song catches him in 1979, a few years after his first pair of albums failed, but before things went entirely south. He’s drinking alone, “sick with singing the same songs,” reminiscing about better time (and kisses and touches), but he still has fight left: “You think I’m finished, / think I’m not winning / Well, go on assume.” The song ends with Campbell taking off (being lifted, really) from the loneliest street corner into space, far from the maddening crowd, safe among real stars (but not real people). With that, Okkervil River pull down the shades (a la the curtain) and kill the morning, setting us up for the next scene because, after all, there’s “another morning after afternoon and tonight.”
The Stand-Ins is only 40 minutes long, including the instrumentals. It feels tight. It’s not as ragged or over-the-top as Black Sheep Boy, etc., which feels very fitting. Going back to our initial question about how these people are different than the folks populating The Stage Names … It doesn’t work for each track, but by and large, though Sheff is still focusing on the silver screen, instead of the images that flicker on and in front of it, we’re getting those left in the margins, backstage, and in the audience … and discovering how each of their lives is just as important.
The Stand-Ins is out 9/9 via Jagjaguwar.
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I feel that this was better than The Stage Names.
I feel the same way. The Stage Names put me to sleep with boredem. This one is still kind of quiet, but it holds my attention throughout.
so can’t wait for this!! i’m even going to buy it!
i agee
wow but ‘unless it’s kicks’ and ‘our life is not a movie or maybe’ are like 2 of the best songs ever!!! there’s a couple boring songs but but those 2 make up for it
No, I agree that those are two oustanding tracks (I think I called “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe” my favorite song of 2007.) Yet, they were right at the beginning of the album, and it was like they blew the entire wad right then and there with all that energy which only went downhill steadily as the album progressed.
yeah but then you get to ‘john allyn smith sails’ at the end and all is forgotten!
Black Sheep Boy/Black Sheep Boy Appendix is/are probably my favorite album/albums of all time, top 5 @ least BECAUSE of how “ragged” & “over the top” they were. The Stage names just made me want to listen to those again & this does seem like a continuation of that, IMHO.
If you’re going to sleep during “Savannah Smiles” you have no soul
i think the stage names is a much more solid album, but i like the songs on this too. i can’t believe people think the stage names was boring! what about plus ones (which is the smartest novelty pop song ever), and you can’t hold the hand of a rock and roll man? so good!
i think it is important to consider this the stage names appendix, as sheff referred to it in a pitchfork interview (much like the black sheep boy appendix). most of the songs are cast offs from the stage names sessions with (if i remember the interview right) a couple new songs thrown in. and for that, it is a wonderful album.
lost coastlines is one of the best songs of the year, for sure.
Currently tied with the Fleet Foxes record for my favorite of 08 thus far.
If this had been issued along with The Stage Names as a 2-disc set, there would be no question as to the best album of 07/08 (depending on when it would have been released). As it is, it’s just another Black Sheep Boy Appendix (which is not at all a bad thing to be).
I’m glad to see so much support for Black Sheep Boy and it’s Appendix. It’s definitely one of my favorite albums of all time, and the appendix has some of Okkervil River’s great songs ever on it (“Another Radio Song” is still arguably their best). The Appendix is at the very least the best EP ever recorded. So I wouldn’t mind at all if The Stand Ins was on par with it.
I still am dispaointed with the recent trend towards “less is more”. I would have much prefered them to release a double album late last year, rather than two mini albums a year apart. It smells like good marketting, and a sacrifice of art at the expense of short attention spans. Okkervil’s sound and style seem so confined when they are not shooting for something “Epic”. It’s like a tiger in a cage at the zoo. I enjoy it, but I can’t help but imagine how awesome it would be if they just let it run wild.
check out a pretty nice live version of new track Lost Coastlines (recorded two days ago) here: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid376819422/bctid1716391529
I think when you consider the context–that this is merely an appendix to The Stage Names–there is a pleasant album to be heard here. However, song for song this is not nearly as strong as TSN, and “the stand ins” instrumentals were boring and masturbatory. Definitely one of their weaker releases.
he new okkervil river is OMG to the NTH degree – heartbreaking beauty that actually manages to top last year’s wonderful “The Stage Names.” I’m going to go out on a limb and say “Calling and Not Calling My Ex” is my favorite song of the year. Time will tell, I suppose, but when Will says “go break their hearts,” I got razorblade goosebumps for years. Fucking amazing shit. DL that shit the bad way, then buy it when it drops. I did and will.
Yeah, at the moment this is definitely my album of the year. it’s so concise and beautiful. Bruce Wayne Campbell is such an excellent closer.
the stage names was my favorite album last year and this one seems like it’s gonna be my favorite this year
Just thought you guys would like to know that this is officially available for pre-order from Jagjaguwar!
“Singer-Songwriter” – recorded in one take, and purely awesome. I’m loving the whole thing (except maybe for “Pop Lie” — not quite there on that one).
really digging this so far based on the first couple songs.. probably more so than Stage Names. My favorite is still Don’t Fall in Love with Everyone you See… do people still listen to the pre-Black Sheep Boy albums?
People definitely still listen to pre-Black Sheep Boy albums, at least I do.
“Westfall” may be their best song ever.
Although I have to say “Lost Coastlines” was pretty sick.
Oh, and “For the Captain” from stars too small is another absolute favorite.
also ‘it ends with a fall’ off ‘down the river of broken dreams’ is a classic..
re: Westfall, (yes it’s great) they did the whole thing in Spanish when i saw them at a festival in Spain this past may. it was impressive! will didnt read off a sheet or anything and my friend said it sounded like he was saying the words phoenetically (ie, doesnt speak spanish) so even more impressive!
doh make that ‘golden’ dreams
Good album but nothing touches “John Allyn Smith Sails”