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Photo by Alexandra Valenti
It’s hard to believe ten years have passed since Austin band Okkervil River released Black Sheep Boy. Since then they have released four albums and a few EP’s, all of which garnered praise from critics and fans alike, but even now Black Sheep Boy may stand as their greatest achievement. Though it was actually their third album, Black Sheep Boy put Okkervil River on the map. The band and their label (Jagjaguwar) must feel this way too or else they wouldn’t have put so much work into the gorgeous new three-LP set.
On the first disc we get the album itself. Black Sheep Boy was striking in the way it balanced dark and light, sad and happy. Frontman Will Sheff’s urgent, wavering vocals have always lent themselves to this contrast. On songs like “For Real” he jumps between hushed tones and lashing out with a commanding power as his vivid lyrics capture a burning desire to find love. Part of what made the album so compelling was the way Sheff and his band could so gracefully balance intimate songs of sorrow and melancholy alongside exuberant, fast-moving rock tunes. “In A Radio Song” carries the sound of wind and rain behind Sheff’s delicate vocals, while “Black” bounces along with a catchy, playful organ riff.
On songs like “A King And A Queen” and “Song Of Our So-Called Friend”, the band basked in orchestration as they brought in trumpets, different keyboards, and softly brushing drums to paint a musical picture that was as beautiful and complex as the album’s cover art, done by frequent collaborator William Schaff. Over the years Okkervil River have ventured into poppier and more straightforward indie rock territory to positive results, but Black Sheep Boy stands as a masterpiece and feels just as moving today as it did ten years ago.
Black Sheep Boy Appendix was an eight-song mini album that was sort of the spillover of the material from Black Sheep Boy, composed of songs from that album that Sheff and the band reworked or never finished. In some cases these songs stand on their own, like the pedal steel-tinged “Black Sheep Boy #4” and the unassuming tale of crime and drug addiction in “The Next Four Months”. This collection of songs is exactly what its title suggests. It offers us a look inside the process and the kind of ideas that went into crafting Black Sheep Boy. The songs are rougher and more experimental, and you can practically hear Sheff co. working their way towards perfection.
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The final album included is the unreleased There Swims A Swan. Longtime fans will be most interested in hearing this as it finds the band tackling covers they picked from the American songbook of well-known classics. Recorded six months before Black Sheep Boy, the album feels like research, as if Will Sheff and his band could only understand the influences they wanted to capture on Black Sheep Boy by playing them. These are songs like “Goodnight Irene”, “Knoxville Girl”, “Satan Is Real”, and “Moonshiner” that are steeped in the roots of American music like blues, Appalachian, and folk. The band pays fitting tribute with bare bones acoustic renditions that sound like they were recorded in a log cabin somewhere in Tennessee. On this album we are brought full circle back to an understanding of the forces that led to Black Sheep Boy and are shown a side of a band known less for embracing American roots music than for creating their own hip indie rock. Only after the Will Sheff sings the haunting final notes of “Trouble In Mind” do we fully realize why Black Sheep Boy is still so mesmerizing ten years later.
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