The Stand Ins, the latest from Austin-based indie-darlings Okkervil River -- who have been fine-tuning the art of coupling dense, wordy lyrics with straight-up, swaggering rock ‘n’ roll since 1998 -- comes as a follow-up to last year’s breakthrough disc, The Stage Names. Originally conceived as a double album, this collection picks up right where John Allyn Smith sailed away on The Stage Names, from the matched-up cover arts to the continuation of themes of celebrity, music, and art and the oftentimes crushing reality behind them all But where The Stage Names was a whirlwind of emotion and anthems, frontman Will Sheff’s cerebral sentiments meshing with sweeping instrumentation, this disc has lost a little of that momentum. For all its energy, there’s always an undercurrent of bleakness, a mood of cynicism and disappointment that no amount of shimmering guitar work and soaring vocals can quite buoy.
At only eight songs (and three short instrumental interludes), the disc nevertheless feels jam-packed, leaning towards epic with the average track clocking in at five minutes. “Lost Coastlines” begins things by bringing back former collaborator and Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg for an unexpectedly rollicking duet. Things start slow with light touches of guitar and banjo, until a jaunty bassline, layers of guitars, and Sheff’s distinctive, rising croon kick in, all creating a wonderfully symphonic ode to uncharted waters: “And every night finds us rocking and rolling on waves wild and wide / Well, we have lost our way / Nobody’s gonna say it outright / Just go la, la la la,” Sheff sings as the song barrels towards its close, and this might be as good an opener as “Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe.”
Where The Stage Names’ aforementioned “Our Life” traversed crappy movies trying to pass as brilliance, “Singer-Songwriter” comes as one long dig at hipster musicians attempting to do the same, spat out in Sheff’s bitter vocal (“And this thing you once did might have dazzled the kids / But the kids once grown up are gonna walk away / And your world is gonna change nothing”). The unrelenting acidity of the lyrics can become a little numbing, but the buoyant alt-country groove steps in to elevate things.
While every track on The Stage Names seemed slotted into place, here things sometimes get top-heavy, stumbling under the sheer weight of Sheff’s lyrics. Closer “Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea Hotel, 1979” is a mouthful, to say the least, and has nothing on the thrilling “John Allyn Smith Sails.” It begins well, with Sheff wearily mumbling, “Fuck long hours sick with singing / Sick with singing the same songs,” but, like “Calling And Not Calling My Ex,” there’s some essential energy missing, and it’s all a bit of a meander.
But when Sheff is good, he’s truly brilliant, his lyrics jamming in enough alliteration and internal rhyme to make an English major swoon and his voice painfully revealing. “On Tour With Zykos” tones down the rush of guitars, instead trading in gentle strings and twinkling piano melodies to pair with the hauntingly listless lyrics.
Meanwhile, “Pop Lie” mixes fuzzy riffs, clanging drums, and a jubilant bass rhythm from Patrick Pestorius to create this album’s most dynamic moment, a cynical revelation of pop-singer deception ultimately dedicated to “the woman who concentrated / All of her love to find / That she'd wasted it on / The liar who lied in this song.”
But it’s album centerpiece “Blue Tulip” that affirms
The Stand Ins only really falters in direct comparison to the more dynamic Stage Names, though this bleaker, edgier approach certainly has its own strengths; by no means is this a collection of B-sides tarted up for release. All the hallmarks of