OKKERVIL RIVER
Black Sheep Boy Appendix
(Jagjaguwar)
· A rare case of more is better.
Even a cursory listen to Okkervil River’s epic-minded Black Sheep Boy album from earlier this year suggests the struggles and weight borne by its creation. Months onward, the Black Sheep Boy Appendix reveals a set of also-rans from the same sessions that equal those featured on the actual record.
Where "Black Sheep Boy #4" adds another grand chapter to Okkervil main-man Will Sheff’s dark wanderer storyline (based in earnest on Tim Hardin’s minimalist two-minute masterwork of the same name), Appendix’s true amazement is "Another Radio Song’s" driving imposition that, "there is no escaping the thing that is making its home in your radio." Were Okkervil River given the attention they deserve, it would be worth actually switching one’s radio back on again.
As a collection of debris, Black Sheep Boy Appendix is a worthwhile denouement to one of the finest albums of the year.
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