I've written about this album before, but I have to write more as I've had the chance to really get into it.

Now, first of all, it's not quite yet released. It drops on 2007-08-07 (Aug 7th) and is available on pre-order from Jagjaguwar right here (where you can download the first track on the album, "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe", for free). I think this is the way to go for record-companies that understand the customer.

Once you pre-order it, you get to download the entire album for free. Simple. Lovin'.

Following an initial period of sudden disappointment, simply because I've listened "Black Sheep Boy" and "Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See" to pieces, I thought that the band changes its sound somewhat from album to album and that's a good thing. I listened to "The Stage Names" more and started falling in love after appx. four listens. At first, I was struck by missing songs similar to "Red" and "My Bad Days" and wondered whether my love was unrequited, but yet again, this is a new sound ““ even though the new songs are unmistakably Will Sheff's craft ““ and hence another path than has been treaded before. Change is not negative; change is inherent in evolution.

With this in mind and new listens, tracks started sticking. The first track that really stuck for me, was "Unless It's Kicks". If you've heard "For Real", I think you know what I mean about the degree of reality that's in there (although I think this atmosphere permeates all of their tracks). By the way, my girlfriend's the one who introduced Okkervil River to me, and she's written devotedly about the new album, e.g. this piece.

The lyrics are good. And yet, the shake's here. I mean the stuff that makes you scream and jump madly for a track. The real deal. What makes The Stooges' "Search & Destroy" work, what turns Dusty Springfield's softly singing of hurt love utterly real, and what makes you feel it's you Morrissey sings about while referring to the goings-on in a darkened underpass. There's enough reality here to make you lose your inhibitions and throw yourself at serpents just to find something to match your joie de vivre of being here.

According to Will, the new sound is meant to be more modern than on their previous albums. I agree (in regards to the albums I've heard). Where there was previously a notable southern American drawl over tracks, a more folky approach as such, there is now an updated tinge of (ironically old) Tamla-Motown, finger-snappin' and hip-swayin' ("Our Life..." and "A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene"), those tracks laying side by side next to more calm tracks (e.g. "Savannah Smiles", "A Girl In Port") and a there's a huge sense of kudos for the band, as they've co-produced this album, their baby, into reality. By the way, this is the first OR-album where the entire band attributed more than technically, musically speaking; previously, Will's done it all. Ergo, the entire band's paved way for this, the new theme-album.

Of course, there's more to the album than shaking or head-nodding. The lyrics are as center-placed as the music. As I think "Black Sheep Boy" was about fucking up and pulling through, about self-worth and self-preservation, I think "The Stage Names" is about entertainment, about life in the public's attention; of course there are many interpretations to be found regarding this, as this album delves a lot further than other modern-day diddies on the subject (e.g. Arctic Monkeys' "Teddy Picker"); both music and lyrics make for many interpretations of this, as the music is complex and the lyrics are poetic.

"Savannah Smiles" is a father's words after a glance into his daughter's diary, punctuated by a reverbed acoustic guitar, a xylophone and a metronome clock. Lovely strings. Fine tempo, and Will's singing is impeccable. He's nailed the Brian Wilson aesthetic: make something hard seem simple; even though the song may be simple to play, pulling it together and playing it is something else.

Will seems to have quite a broad taste in music. The sound on this album reeks of an aesthetic akin to that of Kraftwerk's, where the sound means as much as the tracks ““ even though Kraftwerk clearly has taken sound and image further than most artists. We no longer find the free-flowing horn-section from "Lady Liberty" here, no free-flowing, folk-jazzy guitar-pieces like those on "Kansas City" or even guitar feedback used on "Black Sheep Boy", but rather four-to-the-floor-ish danceables where the sound's as tight as James Brown would have controlled it with "the one", the syncopated rhythm that always restarts after four bars. You can almost imagine the band performing "A Hand That Takes Hold Of The Scene" in suits. Their playing is stellar, the backing vocals are in-place and finish timely. The guitar chops the track funky to make you move while you hear Will's voice force words on life in a staccato vibrato (virtually unheard before, I think, both from him and certainly not in pop music today) to a funky blues-riffed bass. You got your doo-wop, your lose-your-wits-to-the-shake-of-a-tambourine moments, and also your crying-your-eyes-out and times where you think the lyrics are speaking to your heart, where you feel the album's a mate to wring your arm around and share secrets with. There's playfulness and a strong sense of having experimented that surrounds this album. I'm quite sure Will and his companions have had a lot of fun making it while they've served us one of the best modern albums in ages, reaching to the 50's and grabbed hold of the present and the eternal for a lot of inspiration.

"Plus ones" is another track that punches through, for what seems to be a hommage to existing tracks by adding a number to numbers referenced in some famous songs, adds some wonderful lines, e.g.

And he says, "Lets get lost, let them send out alarms" He says, "Let's get crossed out and come to harm "Let's make the world's stupidest stand and truly mean it "Let's hit the limit of loss over lover's arms No, let's exceed it"

The melodies...oh, my. They're out to get me. There are enough hooks and riffs from pianos, guitars, the bass, and the singing ““ thanks for proving the human voice is an instrument and not just something to be slapped onto instrumentation ““ to make me think these are recordings where James Brown arranged The Beatles' playfulness while letting Phil Spector produce with a gun pointed to his head, because that's what it sounds like at times: controlled and lovingly nurtured to life, playing as they went along.

Entertainment, superficiality, highs and kicks, what's to be wringed out of a mind at the end of the day, stories of persons touched from a distance or near, strings, screaming and a semi-clinical studio-approach to this album (especially in comparison with "DFILWEYS") tug me continually back to what OR's about: what's real. It's "a glistening shot of a kiss that's as sharp as a knife" of sorts, as Will puts it. The band's made the album together (although Will's written the songs and lyrics) and this means something for a band that has since long struggled financially, not to mention they really bleed for their music. In a way, OR are the American equivalent of English band The Libertines: both draw huge influences from the music of the country where they grew up, they use poetic imagery and unorthodox methods to make the music work, and this makes love shine through it all. Not to mention both artists are brilliant, simply put.

I draw references to other artists, producers and records, but this is an original piece of work. Okkervil River certainly deserves a future in music for ages to come. This is the most important music in ages. These guys are anointed.

By the second verse, dear friends My head will burst, my life will end So, I'd like to start this one off by saying "Live and love"

By the time Will sings those lines from "John Allyn Smith Sails", you know you'll soon be replaying the album, or at least a track or two, whether you wanna dance or feel the passions of life or touch something real when you feel life's fooled you. Yes, the album is that good.

And oh yeah, they've robbed Beach Boys of "Sloop John B.", which definitely is a plus one.