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Okkervil River | Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See

Originality that most bands would be jealous of.
CD, Jagjaguwar/Konkurrent

Tekst: Wilko van Iperen

Publicatiedatum: 28 januari 2002

Okkervil River are one of Jagjaguwar's latest recruitments. 'Don¹t Fall In Love With Everyone You See' is the band's second album after their self-released first one ('Stars Too Small To Use'). It's a hard job to typify this band: There are alt.country influences - which isn't a big surprise, being from Texas - but the sound also contains folk and indierock (or is this the exact definition of the term alt.country?). When an album starts off with "red is my favorite color / red like your mother's eyes / after a while of crying / about how you don't love her"... Well, things can't seem to go wrong from there on. 'Red' immediately made me crave for the rest of the album, on which Will Robinson Sheff presents a small story in every song. Most of the time he lives in the main character's feeling and translates that in his way of singing - almost screaming out of frustration over a failed relationship ('Lady Liberty') or sounding as depressed as a human being can in the chamber-pop song 'My Bad Days'. After my expectations rose from the first song, I couldn't help but be a little bit disappointed by the following few songs. They just don't have the same charm as the opening song. It's just a shock to go from Tindersticks-like pop to alt.country, although the songs still have an originality that most bands would be jealous of. Things even get better with 'Westfall', the fifth song, where the main character goes out with a friend and two girls of whom "one was named Laurie / that's what the story said next week in the Guardian" - Oops, I think I killed someone! Lyrical wit and a melody to die for: This makes my day. Indierock legend Daniel Johnston comes around on 'Happy Hearts' to do a duet. The lyrics are exactly what you might expect from a duet with Johnston - an innocent view on love ("Why must happy hearts break so hard?"). From the fifth one on, the songs are far above average, and the lyrics are more then OK. It's like with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy or even Belle & Sebastian: The lyrics aren't always as funny as the smile they put on your face. A dead dog "[had] never been to church / so he doesn't have a soul / he isn't waiting at the place / where all of us will go." Grieving over a dead dog gets you thinking strange thoughts! The album is closed with two beautiful slower songs. Lyrically, this is top-notch, the organic sound of the band and the narrative songs; all of this together makes it a real charming piece of work!

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/okkervil-river/don-t-fall-in-love-with-everyone-you-see/892/
Meer Okkervil River op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/okkervil-river