I Am Very Fary, Okkervil River's sixth album, is a Mad Max dystopia of a record. Unlike Okkervil's past efforts, which is marked by a languid sort of patience, this record surges with an unprecedented menace that's oppressively urgent at one moment and dreadfully quiet the next. It's a record of extremes- a controlled descent into madness where every ray of sunlight is defined by the shadows that grow dark around them. It's littered with wide open soundscapes populated by every doom and gloom pronouncement lead singer Will Sheff can make.
The majority of I Am Very Far is akin to releasing a beast of an Okkervil River that's only been hinted at on prior releases. It makes a move away from the band's usual high minded works of literate deliberation and towards a more freewheeling sound where the id runs rampant for better or worse. Only on "Lay of the Last Survivor" do we get truly close to a traditional Okkervil sound: quiet, reflective and reserved with more than a little sadness for its subject. The rest of the album is shot through with rampant paranoia and desparation as it goes places that one knows better but can't resist.
Which isn't to say that this is a wholly brand new model for the band. A lot of the intent here is the same. It's just the palette of colors that isn't. The ideas here, musical or otherwise, are still grandiose and deceptively expansive in ways not often found in the typical rock canon. "We Need a Myth" sees the band shifting dynamics and instrumentation in a manner akin to 2007's "John Allyn Smith Sails" while "Rider" features an up-tempo dynamic that would not have been out of place on the Stand Ins. It just takes a song like "White Shadow Waltz" to see that this is still the same Okkervil, it just happens to be through Brian Wilson's acid tinted lenses.
essential listening:
The Valley
Your Past Life as a Blast
The Rise
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