Another of Adam's favorites that I checked out, an easy pickup because I tend to like Okkervil River, if nothing else.
The album starts off great with the first two songs. The opener is the hissy, classic, Guided by Voices model, sounding impossibly tiny and faraway, a stark contrast to the layered, perfect mellotron and piano and everything crush of huge that comes later. Its probably the finest moment on the album, and its a trick reprised effectively on the closer. The second song once again defies genre and sound, coming out ancient and simple, evoking Johnny Cash and his influences.
After that, things are a bit more conventional. Still good, but disappointing after such a strong opening. Then the songs get more structured, and longer, and Roky has a nasty habit of repeating the same line over and over again, hanging the entire song on a given mantra. Maybe if you really buy into that line, its repetition gives it growing, euphoric power, but it mostly made each song sound like it was outreaching its substance.
Most of what I like about this lies in its atmosphere. The way it evokes Cash and other weathered souls (John Lawman evokes idiot-era Iggy Pop more than you might guess), the production tricks on the opener and closer, and the Roky-taking-a-break intermission in the middle. The playing is solid and exciting too. The real letdown is in that structure, the excessive repetition, which didn't keep me from enjoying the once-through, but that will probably keep it from seeing too many future spins. Just didn't quite suck me in the way it seemed to have been designed to - further proof, perhaps, that I don't listen to music the way one theoretically should, so obsessed with the new new new new am I. Then again, this is what you get for doing these after one listen. Did you know I didn't even plan to do reviews when I first thought of this? Just to track when I heard albums. And here we are. 3/5
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