New Hampshire born, Austin bred Okkervil River recently released their fifth full length, Stage Names. While the record continues to build on the melodramatic epic-ness of Black Sheep Boy and Down the River Of Golden Dream, I find myself revisiting the Australia only Tour Ep Overboard & Down. Two tracks in particular keep drawing me to this EP, which conveniently fits into the 25 minute constraint of my bike ride to work. Quite lovely. "The President's Dead," the opening track of the EP, is a nostalgic history lesson, which functions as a meaningful portrait of the thoughts running through ones head during a catastrophic historical event, for example the assassination of a President. Nothing political here, rather a character study of what one "small, quiet man" felt the day the president was shot and killed. He was in his bed with his girlfriend, the presidents dead. His memories lead to an array of emotive sentiments, dreaming of the future and recreating the past in sweeping poetics.
"Love to a Monster" is an over-dramatic jangler about trying to hate an EX when it's near impossible to do, regardless of what he or she did and includes the line "I Hope You get Angry and Get Hurt and Have the Hardest of Landings." Melodrama, nostalgia and poetry, just the thing we've come to expect from Will Sheff and company.
Okkervil River- The Presidents Dead
Okkervil River- Love to a Monster
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