Okkervil River
The Stand-Ins

Release Date: Sep 9, 2008

If you’re anything like me – and I hope you aren’t – you remember an episode of The O.C. wherein band-of-the-moment, Rooney, (and a brief moment it was) “shake-shaked it up” for all the regulars of Newport Beach. While Rooney was good for what they were (a one-hit pop band), I’ve often wondered what it would be like if a band with the same appeal, but with an extra dose of talent, existed.

Enter Okkervil River. These boys hailing originally from New Hampshire and now based in Austin, Texas bring that missing element of honest introspection and self-indictment to the indie-pop sound that so many bands have gotten caught up in. Where most groups get caught up in perfecting typified song structures and tweaking every production technique possible, Okkervil River bounds ahead by leaving these detriments of the “Indie-Top-40” behind and concentrating on thematic songwriting and intricate instrumentation.

Their latest release, The Stand-Ins, is a compilation of material that didn’t make it onto their last album, The Stage Names. Make no mistake though, The Stand-Ins produces none of the disappointment featured on a particular Midler-starring Seinfeld episode. The album stands up alone while mirroring, both in content and in cover-art, their previous release; they can even be thought of as a double-CD, which Sheff, somewhat embarrassed, has admitted to consciously creating.

The Stand-Ins lives up to its namesake as the songs revolve around a sense of void and substitution. Throughout, we see the horrendous effects of a traveling musician on his female counterpart (“On Tour with Zykos”), the indictment as a blatant liar of the singer of a pop song (“Pop Lie”) and the duplicitous reaction to an ex-lover’s success (“Calling & Not Calling My Ex”), just to name a few.

This isn’t to say that Okkervil River makes sad music. On the contrary, the majority of the album rolls off the edges of 60’s melody structures and a jazz-influenced modern rock mountaintop. Throughout, trumpets annunciate counter-rhythms behind your standard (but intelligently built) guitar and keyboard-driven songs. At times buoyant-yet-typical (“Pop Lie”), at other moments more reminiscent of a jazz lounge soundtrack (“Starry Stairs”), the album will keep even the most cynical of listeners guessing.

Which brings us to Sheff’s voice: a protein-smoothie made of one part overly-teased-teen, two parts self-righteous indulgence and a generous dose of ‘50s lounge singer. The man can sing. What’s better, even in the most over-the-top moments – like “Blue Tulip’s” - “I’ve got my ear against the screen/I feel your feelings crackling” - there’s an honesty that begs you to forgive the despondency. Any listener surely will, as the string section wells up behind a truly admirable level of confidence behind each line.

The final track, “Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea Hotel, 1979,” not only a reference one of the first manufactured megastars, becomes a brilliant end to such a sullen album. While The Stand-Ins feels depressing on the surface, the underlying consciousness and happiness with all the mistakes that have been made – the music counter pointing the lyrics throughout – forces a listener to just be glad they’ve had a chance to “have a hand” and see the “sparkling stars off the loneliest street corner” alongside with Okkervil River.