In The Rainbow Rain
More than 20 years into his career, Will Sheff—sole proprietor of shape-shifting indie-rock storytellers Okkervil River—continues to reinvent himself. Pivoting from 2016’s elegiac *Away* (released after the death of Sheff’s grandfather and exodus of much of his band), *In the Rainbow Rain* is a rigorously uplifting album, flecked with gospel (“The Dream and the Light”), psych-pop (“Pulled Up the Ribbon”), and ’70s-style country (“Don’t Move Back to L.A.”), capped by the Lennonesque release of “Human Being Song.” As colorful as the arrangements are—a swirl of synths, drum machines, and phased guitars—it’s Sheff’s writing that anchors the album, rich with images of youth, religiosity, and old-fashioned human resilience.
Will Sheff makes kindness an aesthetic on this album of gentle, idiosyncratic songs about dog adoption, celebrities’ emergency tracheotomies and finding transcendence in nature.
Grouper’s Grid Of Points finds the artist at her most vulnerable, while Dr. Dog loses momentum on Critical Equation, and Okkervil River’s In The Rainbow Rain is pretty but a little schmaltzy. These, plus Speedy Ortiz in this week’s notable new releases.
An album of serious, po-faced tenderness mixed with a healthy dollop of irony.
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In the Rainbow Rain, the band's ninth long-player, is a buoyant, stylistically diverse collection of songs that signal a tonal shift away from the bucolic folk and fervent indie Americana of the past.
Good news/bad news: In the Rainbow Rain, the latest album from Okkervil River, is as hopeful and punchy, but also as clunky as its title. Af...
Okkervil River vocalist Will Sheff—much like The National's Matt Berninger—has the kind of voice that, regardless of lyrics, conveys an inherent and infinite melancholy.
Throughout much of In the Rainbow Rain, Will Sheff is content to lean on threadbare platitudes.
Back with a revamped lineup, Okkervil River are primed for another long run of surprise and distinction with <em>In the Rainbow Rain</em>.
Okkervil River - In The Rainbow Rain review: May God have mercy on the polyglot.