There’s no reason I should look back fondly on the New England of the ’80s. I wasn’t there, couldn’t have been. And yet with their new album, The Silver Gymnasium, Okkervil River has left me waxing poetic for experiences I haven’t had, nostalgic for things I’ve imagined.
A bulk of the credit for this can probably be attributed to Will Sheff’s lyrics. While they retain the fluidity and the poetry that’ve been omnipresent in the band’s previous work, the words trade the epic scope of 2011’s I Am Very Far for the more intimate feel of The Stage Names and The Stand Ins. Where earlier albums espoused the exhaustion of adulthood, this new collection has a sepia-tinged longing for the past
The results perfectly capture certain moments in detail vivid enough to trap us in them without being so photorealistic as to rob us of our perspective. We’re seeing these scenes, but through the eyes of our ten year-old storyteller (or some 30 odd year old version of him).
While the lyrics skew to the personal end of the spectrum, musically the band manages to hold over just enough of the mythic scale and bombast of the previous album to lend Sheff’s memories the necessary emotional weight, from the droning pulse of “Walking Without Frankie” to the Springsteen-sized synth hook on “Down Down the Deep River.”
But while the album certainly reminisces—with tracks like “Lido Pier Suicide Car,” “Pink Slips” and “Where the Spirit Left Us” seeming to carry a profound loss of innocence—it never sacrifices the joy in its memories to do so.
Okkervil River artfully strikes a balance between missing the past and celebrating it proper. Summer turns to fall, young turns old and time moves on. The result is the perfect college album, the perfect autumn album and a stunning, moving piece of work.
Rating: A-
