At the end of November, Okkervil River released another free EP of covers titled Golden Opportunities 2, which included the wistful and buoyant "It Is Nice To Get Stoned." Since that time, I have been on a steady diet of Will Sheff and company. In my process of rediscovering Okkeril River's catalog, I sought out rarities I had previously missed, chiefly Overboard & Down EP, a small collection of tracks from the group's Australian tour in 2006. I marveled at the rawness of emotion and melancholy in "Love to a Monster," the sad jangle of the mandolin completing the tender wound. The song begins with a verse that is as stark and distressed as any: "Lover, now that you've left me, I'm glad you're unlovely/Because if you could take all the heat in your heart and just hang it from you/I wouldn't be able to bear the way you cannot love me/It's much easier of me to make a monster out of you."
Far and away, the album I enjoyed from start to finish and enjoyed time after time, was Black Sheep Boy. Those eleven tracks encapsulate what I find so captivating and appealing about Okkervil River. The album drifts between frantic, steep layers of vigor and more hushed moods in "Get Big" and "A King and A Queen." In each instance, however, Sheff's vocals are delivered with palpable feeling of distress and grief, hovering on the edge of hysterics. Simply put, it is the perfect introductory album to initiate your love affair with Okkervil River.
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