I Am Very Far
Okkervil River were gradually improving their public profile when they became Texas rock legend Roky Erickson’s backing band. Together, they assembled the album *True Love Cast Out All Evil*, a brilliant comeback record that taught the group a few subtle lessons. *I Am Very Far* is, arguably, the band’s tightest record to date. There’s a simplicity here that turns songs such as “Rider” and “Lay of the Last Survivor” into direct hits. Will Sheff rarely overdoes his vocals and when he does allow a greater theatrical flourish, he pulls it off, e.g. the punchy “We Need a Myth”. Sheff produced the album and he knows the value of a few carefully placed instruments. “Hanging From a Hit” has moments of austerity. “Show Yourself” plays like a liquid ballad with the chords sloshing around the backseat while Sheff sings to the moonlight. “The Rise” is a virtual trip, a haunting six-minute exploration of sound and harmony where the band let it loose.
"The goal was to push my brain to places it didn't want to go. The idea was to not have any idea – to keep myself confused about what I was doing," frontman Will Sheff says about Okkervil River's newest album. The resulting record, 'I Am Very Far,' is a startling break from anything this band has done before. By turns terrifying and joyous, violent and serene, grotesque and romantic, it's a celebration of forces beyond our control. On 'I am Very Far,' Sheff emerges not only as a songwriter of the highest caliber, but a producer and arranger of singular vision. Abandoning the tidy conceptual arcs of Okkervil River's previous albums, 'I am Very Far' is a monolithic, darkly ambiguous work, one that doesn't readily offer up its secrets. Work on 'I am Very Far' started in early 2009, after a year spent on the music of others. Sheff contributed vocals to The New Pornographer's album 'Together,' wrote a song for Norah Jones' 'The Fall,' and helmed the Roky Erickson record 'True Love Cast Out All Evil,' for which his album notes received a GRAMMY nomination. Immediately upon wrapping up work and leaving Erickson's company, Sheff drove to his home state of New Hampshire for lengthy isolated writing sessions. "I wanted to go back home and re-start writing again, like I'd never written a song previously," he says, "and I wanted the music and lyrics to be both completely wedded together and a little bit beyond my control." Sheff emerged from the writing process with 30 or so songs, which he narrowed down to 18. In contrast to Okkervil River's usual practice of holing up in one studio for months on end, he opted for a series of short, high-intensity sessions, each in a different location, each employing completely different methods than the one before it. For songs like "Rider" and "Wake and Be Fine," Sheff gathered together a massive version of Okkervil River – two drummers, two pianists, two bassists, and seven guitarists, all playing live in one room – and led them on a week of live-in-the-studio marathon session, performing a single song obsessively over and over for as many as 12 hours to capture just the right take. Finishing the record from home, Sheff constantly edited and reworked the album, reinventing the song structures, re-recording vocals, re-writing until the very last minute, reshaping even the tiniest of details, ultimately creating an album that plays not only as a lush, seamless epic, but also as the most deeply personal effort of his career. What can listeners expect? Richer and weirder than 'The Stage Names' and deeper and moodier than even 'Black Sheep Boy,' 'I am Very Far' is dense, fragmented, opaque. A reverie of uncertainty, it feels at once disorienting and oddly familiar, threatening and friendly. Okkervil River have thrown away all maps and compasses but they continue to chart their way, unblinking, toward destinations unknown.
After a run of concept albums, Will Sheff's literate indie rock project returns with a collection of unrelated songs united by the dense production.
When music defies easy description, it’s tempting to define it by what it isn’t. In the case of Okkervil River’s I Am Very Far, it’s difficult to hear its dark, dense, mysterious songs without immediately branding them as a far cry from the straightforward rock ’n’ roll fables of The Stage Names and The Stand Ins. For…
Give Will Sheff credit. Handed a big budget for his latest album, the frontman for Austin indie rockers Okkervil River may…
Fresh from backing the legendary Roky Erickson on 2010’s triumphant True Love Cast Out All Evil, Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff decided to head home to his native New Hampshire to carve out the meat of the group’s sixth long-player.
I Am Very Far continues Will Sheff and co.'s remarkable run of albums, one that finds them at peak form and threatens to put them in a class all their own.
Okkervil River's soaring Americana rewards repeated listening, writes <strong>Phil Mongredien</strong>
Okkervil River’s sixth album is an excellent, reductionist work, the sound of a band attempting to locate the visceral core of their craft by submerging every other element in noise.
Okkervil River's extravagant new album sounds like a lunge at the big time, reckons Alexis Petridis