Everybody talked about reunions last fall, from Pavement to Swans to Archers of Loaf’s surprise appearance in North Carolina earlier this month. But aren’t we forgetting something? While we speculate about which early-90s indie supergroups should get back together, aren’t we neglecting the little guys of today — or at least, 2007 and 2008? With the exception of their work as Roky Erickson’s backing band on 2010’s True Love Casts Out All Evil (TMT Review), Okkervil River haven’t released anything since The Stand Ins (TMT Review) over two years ago. I’ll bet you didn’t even realize how much you missed ‘em, did you, you Shearwater traitor?
After all this time, Okkervil River are back with a forthcoming full-length, I Am Very Far, from Jagjaguwar on May 10. Like many works that come a decade into a career, this one is more complex than ever before: there are strings, horns, and choral arrangements, for one. Lush orchestration is nothing groundbreaking these days (ahem — Sufjan, Andrew Bird, an entire trend of “maximalism”), so frontman Will Sheff boldly asserts that some tracks consist of “file cabinets thrown across the room, a solo created out of a fast-forwarding and rewinding boombox, and much more.” Kooky equals good, hopefully, but we’ll have to wait until May to know the full gamut of rock whimsy. Check out Okkervil River on Jimmy Fallon, where they played “Wake and Be Fine” (a new song which, disappointingly, isn’t quite so weird as flying file cabinets and dozens of musicians would suggest — even with The Roots joining in).
• Okkervil River: http://www.okkervilriver.com
• Jagjaguwar: http://www.jagjaguwar.com
