Okkervil River – The Stage Names

It takes a clever bastard to link, in the space of a three-and-a-half-minute song, acts that include Eurotrash footnotes Nena, college-rock pioneers R.E.M., panty-removal soul brothers the Commodores, and MOR survivor Paul Simon. Even more impressive, Okkervil River singer and main songwriter Will Sheff does this without actually naming names, pulling off the feat in the ragged-glory rocker “Plus Ones” by stringing together references to 8 Chinese brothers, 51 ways to leave your lover, and 100 luftballoons.

Putting a new twist on the old game of Name That Tune isn’t the only thing Sheff excels at on Okkervil River’s majestic fifth album, The Stage Names. Over the course of nine tracks that play out like an indie-noir updating of The Day Of The Locust, Sheff creates cinematic miniworlds populated by tragically faded actresses, liquored-up barflies, and freshly-fucked groupies. Or at least that’s what his cryptically coded songs seem to be about.

As wordy as The Stage Names is, there’s nothing cluttered about the music, which features the septet’s most ambitious arrangements to date. Breaking from the black-skies reveries of 2005’s Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River goes the orchestral route here, loading its organic-sounding songs with stardusted pedal steel, springtime-in-Paris horn flourishes, and warm washes of country-gold organ.

Add to the mix the eight-piece classical orchestra that rides shotgun, and the results are breathtaking, whether the band is channeling vintage Robert Smith on “A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene”, or recalling the glory years of Pavement on the slanted-and-enchanted “You Can’t Hold The Hand Of A Rock And Roll Man”. Prepare to be awed.