New Okkervil River

I have never been an Okkervil River fan. Even more than that, I've been the type of person to let out an audible sigh or roll an eye when I hear their name mentioned. I disliked Okkervil River. I always had soft spots for certain songs of theirs, but I always threw them into the Ryan Adams camp of refusing to wade through their mountains of sub par songs to find the few that I thought were decent. Their new album, The Stage Names, has changed things. This is a really good album. I don't feel the need to skip to one or two of the songs on this disc, I listen to all of them all the way through. To me, that's the ultimate test of an album. If I regularly and enthusiastically listen to an album from front to back, it's a really good album. While I love the entire album, to me, there is definitely a stand out track. Track number two, "Unless It's Kicks" is, as far as I am concerned, the best work of this band's career. The song is all kick drum and a super simple yet deadly effective guitar riff and then slowly they add things, a cymbal crash here, some strings there. It all comes together to form what I'd say is one of the best songs of the year. I'm really pleasantly surprised by this album. I would not have guessed that I would enjoy it so much.

Okkervil River - Unless It's Kicks (MP3)

Buy The Stage Names