“Black Sheep Boy” is a renaissance fair away from the countrified folk-pop of New Hampshire band, Okkervil River’s critically acclaimed earlier work: 2003’s “Down The River Of Golden Dreams” and 2002’s “Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See”. Their latest work is a bit more magical and dramatic with touches of sadism as in “For Real” where Scheff sings: “Some nights I thirst for real blood, for real knives, for real cries” – “You can’t hide, you can’t hide, you can’t hide!”
Brian Beattie who also produced Okkervil River’s debut “Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See” produced “Black Sheep Boy”. “Black Sheep Boy”, Down The River Of Golden Dreams” and “Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See” have all been released through tastefully avant-garde, field recording record label, Jagjaguwar.
Sad and illustriously beautiful with new-to-them instruments - Wurlitzer, pump organ, vibraphone and mandolin are: “In A Radio Song”, “Song Of Our So-Called Friend”, “A King And A Queen”, “A Glow” and “Stone”. “Black” is an angry song that has Scheff vowing revenge for a loved one, “Get Big” is sung couple style by Scheff and Amy Annelle. Okkervil River flex their alt-rock muscles in “Latest Toughs” and “For Real”. “So Come Back, I Am Waiting” reveals Scheff’s penchant for New Hampshire college boy words that rhyme: diapason, bacterium, magisterial, abecedarian.
Title track, “Black Sheep Boy” is a cover of the 60’s Tim Hardin song. Okkervil River singer/songwriter, Will Scheff is so besotted with Hardin’s song that he references it throughout this entire album. Full of fables and mysticism; “Black Sheep Boy” lives in a land far, far away where horned men stamp their hoofs and snort. The Okkervil River runs through Mercury Rev’s Black Forest (Lorelie). |