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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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The Stage Names
by Okkervil River
The fourth studio album from the Austin, Texas-based band mixes it up with the help of Jim Eno of Spoon.
| LABEL: |
Jagjaguwar |
| RELEASE DATE: |
07 August 2007 |
| DISCS: |
1 disc |
| GENRE(S): |
Indie, Rock |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Delusions of Adequacy
Everything is here: melody, harmony, great lyrics, smart instrumentation and pure emotion. It’s book ended by two of the best songs of the year and everything in between is music gold.
90
Prefix Magazine
With his band's fourth studio album, frontman Will Sheff stakes a claim here for the right to be called the best songwriter working right now.
90
Alternative Press
This album truely is a collection of gems. [Oct 2007, p.162]
90
Filter
Wildly alive, majestic and by turns brooding and raucous--often within the same song--The Stage Names burns with all the loneliness and adventure of a never-ending road trip.
90
Under The Radar
Each song is expertly crafted, with an amazingly punchy set of melodies delivered by an extremely tight band with sometimes larger arangements that never become fussy. [Summer 2007, p. 76]
87
Pitchfork
Despite its density (they fit worlds into just nine songs), the album remains exciting and accessible, albeit highly sobering.
83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
The Stage Names is a relatively straightforward roots-rock record, rounded out by clever, pop-culture-obsessed songs.
83
Entertainment Weekly
Thanks to the fuzzy-folk-rock vibe, Names never feels like an undergrad lit class. [24 Aug 2007, p.133]
80
All Music Guide
Sheff has proven himself again and again to be a gifted wordsmith, and Stage Names features some of his finest parlor room romanticisms and slacker-poet observations to date.
80
Dusted Magazine
The Stage Names is raucous, rambunctious and occasionally quite funny.
80
Sputnikmusic
The Stage Names, despite being dense, is rarely difficult and is probably the band's most accessible effort to date.
80
PopMatters
On The Stage Names, the band have once again shown themselves to be expert at creating this undeniably sad and powerful indie rock. It’s one of the year’s essential albums.
80
Billboard
The cerebral lyrics take center stage, as it were, while the band rocks out much harder than it did on 2005's melancholy "Black Sheep Boy."
80
NOW Magazine
The Stage Names is much more of a balls-out rock album than most of Okkervil River's oeuvre, and also more orchestral and layered, with arrangements that include everything from non-sissy glockenspiel to metronome percussion. The complexity is the perfect counterpart to Sheff's dense writing.
80
Drowned In Sound
Simple, patient, dreary (in a good way) music dominates this soundtrack, providing the perfect accompaniment for Sheff to wail off about doctor and patient sex in a shrink office, society’s pervasive attraction to celebrity and the plights of aging, among other topics.
80
Q Magazine
Sheff's unorthodox, often beautiful songs blend folk and country with left-field rock influences.
80
Mojo
John B Sheff's wavering, sometimes overwrought, vocal takes getting used to, but it's worth it for songs like these. [Mar 2008, p.108]
78
Austin Chronicle
The urgency is still there, as guitars and pianos take turns screaming during the breakdown, but the violence is replaced with a sense of frivolity and playfulness that lingers throughout the group's fifth release.
75
Stylus Magazine
This album comes in a neat package: well-guarded and wry, artists competently displaying their hard-earned skill. It's all very professional, but no more meaningful than the titular appellations, the smile of a persona.
70
Village Voice
The Stage Names shares the frenzy of pre–"Black Sheep" songs like 'The War Criminal Rises and Speaks,' and if it isn't as monolithic as the album that spurred the band's rise to "Believer"-subscriber prominence, it does contain several fine examples of hyper-articulate hysteria.
70
The New York Times
While this album isn’t as riveting as earlier Okkervil River CDs, there’s plenty to enjoy, and plenty of reason for hope.
70
Slant Magazine
The band's arrangements are still wonderfully unpolished, so while these tunes should please anyone who buys CDs at Starbucks, they still pack some ragged glory of what makes the Austin collective so intoxicating on stage.
70
Lost At Sea
As much as I enjoy Stage Names, it will never be as highly regarded as the comparitavely masterpiece Black Sheep Boy, as the songs lack the depth and magnitude needed to influence a much more musically inclined indie fan base.
70
New Musical Express
Yes, it's solid rock but what they might lack in glamour (no back up dancers here, dude), they make up for in sheer sincerity.
70
Paste Magazine
These sad-sack satirists pepper their fourth album with tracks that quicken the pace to anaerobic levels, as frontman Will Sheff liberally shpritzes his microphone while the band gets lathered up like participants in a grade-school dodgeball game.
70
Spin
Singer/songwriter Will Sheff gives overkill a good name on Okkervil River's fourth album. [Sep 2007, p.136]
65
cokemachineglow
The nearly impossible thematic scope attempted and deftly handled here is a tribute to Will Sheff's dexterity and range as a songwriter (if not a vocalist), and the band's chops for being able to keep pace.
60
Uncut
If at times it's a little too knowing for its own good, the music itself is less claustrophobic than before. [Nov 2007, p.121]
The average user rating for this album is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 52 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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