Results tagged “blacksheep”

We live in an iTunes nation. It's easy to pull a track down to your pod for under a buck. Bostonist still longs for cover art, liner notes, and that masterwork that is a multi-track collection of songs we call an album. Listed here is our much discussed, unbiased by payola, top 25 albums of 2005. After the jump you'll find where some of us stand individually on the subject of the years best. (Apparently... more ›

With 2005’s Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River’s Will Sheff has found his voice. Having already established his band’s American folkternative sound with Down the River of Golden Dreams, Sheff now celebrates the confidence and dexterity to sing his songs with a power already present in his writing. The instrumentation raises similarities to other contemporary artists while distinguishing the record from Okkervil’s previous releases. Compare the gentle strings and lonely narrator of “In A Radio Song” to Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles),” and the sweetness and punctuation of mandolin and trumpet on “A King and A Queen” to Bright Eyes’ “We Are Nowhere and It’s Now.” Themes of isolation and a dark view of the world at times rest BSB in between Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide, It’s Morning, while not aiming for the sonic assault of the former, but still bringing more punch and thickness than the latter. more ›

Goofiness aside, Okkervil River are a fantastic band and they just keep getting better--Bostonist would wholeheartedly recommend 2003's Down The River Of Golden Dreams and Black Sheep Boy is stunning. Black Sheep Boy is loosely centered around British 60s folkie Tim Hardin's titular song about a prodigal son, and the band builds upon that concept by writing murder ballads and love songs about stones in complex song. (For those of you keeping track, awesome Swede Nicolai Dunger has written a song called something like "Ballad For Tim Hardin") Sheff is one of the more interesting lyricists around--his songs are prose poems and they demand unpacking, while his singing voice is one that can be nuanced and sweet or thrillingly desperate, while the band is tight, playing country-tinged rock featuring a multitude of instruments, particularly killer keyboards, and soul. Bostonist can't really gush enough, it's a fantastic album in an ipod world. They've gotten lumped in with their tourmates The Decemberists recently as "literate rock" but Bostonist would argue that Okkervil River leave more of a mark. The Black Sheep Boys play TT the Bears' tonight and what is galvanizing on record should be fantastic live. Bonus: the album has gorgeous artwork by William Schaff, which is kind of confusing, eh? more ›