[rating=6.00]
Austin indie rockers Okkervil River have just released their seventh full length studio album, The Silver Gymnasium. (ATO) Like most of the inclusions in the OR discography, The Silver Gymnasium is a concept album. But lead singer and chief composer Will Scheff isn’t your average front man. Any fan of the group can tell you Scheff’s lyrics are head and shoulders above most of the indie rock fodder currently popular. Unfortunately, this latest release is your average concept album.
Hindsight is 20-20, so when the present’s been established and the future becomes predictable many are left to wonder about what effect changes in the past could have on the here and now. For lyricists, the most common form of sentimentality focuses on past romantic interests. The airwaves are rife with songs of ‘what might have been,’ but for Okkervil River and Will Scheff especially, it is childhood that holds the mystery.
At 35 it might be a little late for Mr. Scheff’s coming of age story, but Okkervil River have made their career off of atypical song subjects and structure. The devastation of 2007’s Stage Names’ meta pop-opera was only eclipsed by the commercial success of 2011’s I Am Very Far which very nearly broke these Texan indioso’s into the mainstream. Perhaps it was examination of his lean years, when a massively talented young man was contemplating the life before him that led Mr. Scheff to pen a musical auto-bio.
Unfortunately Silver Gymnasium doesn’t quite work for several reasons. While a broken heart is a universal subject, childhood memories of New Hampshire in the decadently bizarre decade of the 1980’s is far more narrow in scope. While Okkervil River has long been known for superior lyrical wordplay entwined around a sonically rich landscape, both seem to be lacking for this work.
The majority of the album is presented in bland major scales and tired rhythmic devices. Whereas each track includes an identifiable bent, whether it be the piano bar melody of the opening track “It Was My Season,” or the throwback synth attempt on “Stay Young,” no single track seems to coalesce grandly around the album’s concept, and neither does any track really stand out.
The real disappointment for any Okkervil River fan is the absence of lyrical stimulation. By industry standards the lyrics are better than average, but in relation to past work Mr. Scheff seems as if he’s phoning it in. “Lido Pier Suicide Car,” we mean you here. But that’s just the worst offender. There are minor triumphs on the album, “Pink Slips’” self-defeating glory, or else “Down Down the Deep River’s” compelling youth-in-crisis dramatics, but over-all attention is exhausted by filler tracks one wouldn’t give two listens to if it weren’t out of respect for the groups stellar discography.
Childhood is a tender time in everyone’s life, but an adult has the luxury of choosing how they decorate their existence. Okkervil River can do better. The maturity of their sound combines with the juvenile subject matter on Silver Gymnasium, to produce a decidedly middle of the road album.
