Black Sheep Boy (Definitive Edition)

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Sample Album
ALBUM INFORMATION

Total Tracks: 19   Total Length: 75:18

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Why Not a "Pick"?

GiAntCaPpucCino

This has got to be one of my all-time favorite albums. It is incredible from start to finish. Be sure to download this versiion, which is actually the album plus the "Appendix".

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Perfect.

DirkS.

These guys are special and this is their best. So many great songs and the lyrics are some of the best I've heard in a long, long time.

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Stop. Preview. Download

ZenGentleman

I downloaded this album a few years ago and it is still growing on me and I'm still finding new things to love about it. The hallmark of a great alum in my book.

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Masterpiece

neil.architect

Admittedly it took me a while to get into this band. But this album made the effort all the more rewarding. It's a masterpiece. A vast improvement on "Dont fall in love..."

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Peak.

MarketFresh

This is the Peak work of Okkervil River. Their most cohesive and well made-album. For anyone in the indie/folk world, who doesn't mind a tug or two on the heartstrings, this album is essential.

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amazing album

kajman

with incredible depth. I think this is the high water mark for one of the best bands around today.

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Fantastic stuff

TheScar

Found out about these guys via all the love they got on the blogs a few years back for "For Real"... and they deserve the praise. Their most recent CD "The Stage Names" is one of the best releases of 2007, and this older outing is great too. If you're a lover of jagged guitars and interesting lyrics, you can't do better than this.

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one new track

2Fun2Huge

The only track not included on the original Album and the follow-up EP is "The Next Four Months," AFAICT. Are there any significantly different versions or anything?

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for real and black

emusice

really liked for real and black, but couldn't find much else to sink my teeth into just yet.

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Go!

cddunham

Don't hesitate: download and see them!

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eMusic Features

Bon Iver, Fall Creek, Wisconsin, August 2010...Photo by D.L. Anderson..

eMusic’s Best of 2011

By eMusic Editorial Staff

Want to get a snapshot of last year's best music? In our Best of 2011 radio station, you'll hear songs from the artists who provided our 2011 soundtrack. No matter what your taste -- indie rock, jazz, doom metal or avant-folk, you'll find it here in eMusic's Best of 2011 Radio. more »

They Say All Media Guide

Okkervil River continue to break the glass between messy nerves and orchestrated elegance on their fourth full-length, Black Sheep Boy, titled after the lovely song penned by Tim Hardin with which the band opens the record. However, their take on the song feels a bit rushed and uneventful, which knocks the tender breath from the lyrics and presents a clumsy start. Opening the record this way is the singular yet major complaint of the album, ironically pushing “Black Sheep Boy,” the intended centerpiece, to the outskirts of the album’s overall feel. Thankfully, the song spans only a short minute, so when “For Real” gently slips into motion, then cracks with a surprise beating of guitar stabs, that’s when the confident dynamics Okkervil River established on their fine 2003 album, Down the River of Golden Dreams, break free. This confidence never wanes through the remainder of the album; it is here that the bandmembers sound like they are emotionally attached to the material and here that the album should’ve begun. Black Sheep Boy’s mix of warm strings with Wurlitzer, barroom piano, horns, and vibes effectively creates a spatial and moody balance to the electric guitar attacks and roomy drums. With these songs, clear desperation creeps through and gives the impression that the band could’ve fallen to pieces at any moment — but somehow held it all together — and the catalyst of the whole passage is Will Sheff’s thick, spitting voice pleading with the cascading dissonance and majesty of the arrangements. Tracks like “In a Radio Song,” a song similar to the moody explorations of Saturday Looks Good to Me’s precursory group, Flashpapr, are where these arrangements take the foreground, but equally effective are the forward, uptempo tracks that are less expansive, such as the super-hooky “The Latest Toughs,” with its compressed falsetto singsong backing vocals, and the bouncy screaming “Black.” Save the title track, Okkervil River continue to deliver the quality of Down the River of Golden Dreams, and though sonic evolution is barely existent from that recording, perhaps it doesn’t need to be; certainly Sheff’s songwriting still floats above that of his peers. – Gregory McIntosh

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