THE STAGE NAMES - OKKERVIL RIVER
It used to be that Okkervil River’s Will Sheff couldn’t sing worth a damn, but things change. His whirly yelp, still unsteady, is here as much a fantastic destructive force as it is a story’s fragile narrator. This nine-song collection revolves around the themes of movies, fiction, fame and (naturally) death. The cerebral lyrics take center stage while the band rocks out much harder than it did on 2005’s melancholy “Black Sheep Boy.” Opener “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe” sears with poetry and an instrumental freak-out. “A Girl in a Port” is a tender though jagged modern ballad that sets up the appropriately titled “You Can’t Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man” (a line from a Joni Mitchell song). Loads of clever pop culture references grace “Savannah Smiles,” while “John Allyn Smith Sails” samples — what else? — “Sloop John B.” (Jagjaguwar)
