Okkervil River - The Stage Names

A somewhat unexpected treat - Okkervil River are really good these days! Here, their thing is basically a sort of ragged indie rock, often with a bit of a rough-edged country/contemporary folk flavour, and they're just as convincing selling out and out rockers like opening pair "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe" and "Unless It's Kicks" (my current favourite) as mellower dreaming-in-the-sunlight cuts like "A Girl In Port" and "Title Track", not to mention the Spoon-esque rave-up that is "A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene" or "You Can't Hold The Hand Of A Rock And Roll Man", crunching like a late Smiths song, or enigmatically anthemic closer "John Allyn Smith Sails". It's rather delightful how it plays with the pop music canon, too, most notably on that last, which segues seamlessly into a slowed down "Sloop John B" melody and makes it work as the natural close to the record as a whole, and "Plus Ones", which plays wryly with numbers in famous pop songs (eight Chinese brothers, etc). Excellent.