Review: Roky Erickson & Okkervil River - True Love Cast Out All Evil

Okkervil River are a great band. As a fan for a couple of years now, it’s always exciting when they release new material.
Their 2005 album Black Sheep Boy is a prime example of their quirky, twisted pop-rock sound and is rightly considered their masterpiece. Songs such as The Latest Toughs and For Real conjure real interest with their slightly left-of-centre lyrics and almost lo-fi production. Even slower numbers such as So Come Back, I Am Waiting and A Stone has a primal element amongst the grace and sadness that only adds to the power of the song.

As you can see from my little mini-review, I’m a fan of Okkervil River. However, I was more than a little surprised to see that their latest venture was in collaboration with aging psychedelic rocker Roky Erickson. I mentioned in my post about this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, Texas (from where both artists hail), that they could be an interesting combination and one that I boldly predicted will really hold their own. Erickson’s heartfelt lyrics should sit well with Okkervil River’s quirky, lo-fi but ultimately pop-based instrumental qualities, I said.

But now I’ve finally come into possession of True Love Cast Out All Evil, the album that came from this newly formed group, I’m not so sure.

It starts with the Okkervil River boys firmly in control. Along with closing track God is Everywhere, album opener Devotional Number One is one of those kind-of-arty, deliberately lo-fi tracks and has all the hallmarks of the band. However, odd chord changes and deliberately poor sound quality might work on an Okkervil River record, but doesn’t really highlight the strength’s that lie in Erickson’s fragile voice, only serving to be unnecessarily harsh and slightly irritating.

And it’s a theme that doesn’t just lie at either end of the album either. Whilst there may not be much more lo-fi sounds, songs such as Birds’d Crashed and Be and Bring Me Home still seem forced and at times overcomplicated. Be and Bring Me Home stands out as a track that has been to far removed from Erickson’s country style and this results in a song that sounds to much like Okkervil River for it’s own good. Again, as a stand-alone Okkervil River track, it works. But Erickson strains to hard to fit in and overall just doesn’t blend.

However, all is not lost. Not by a long way.

The title track is a prime example of when the collaboration does work. Along with Goodbye Sweet Dreams, it becomes less obvious that it’s Okkervil River leading the way and sounds much more like a group working together. Erickson’s interesting and dark lyrics are cast in a new light, whilst his voice is given a different life thanks to the clever use of guitar sounds. Please Judge is a heartfelt plea to justice and Bring Back The Past is upbeat and pop-inflected tune that really would’ve sounded great at SXSW 2010.

However, it's Forever that's the highlight. There is some over-complication that occasionally creeps in to , but the quality of the song and the ethereal sense that it has trump any doubts. Starting with a slow acoustic guitar, it slowly builds into a track thats not unlike The Flaming Lips circa The Soft Bulletin. Guitars dart all across the musical spectrum, an organ underpins the pounding and relentless drum pattern and Erickson’s finest hour comes as the song builds into a marvelous finish.

So all in all, True Love Cast Out All Evil was a touch underwhelming. Maybe I should’ve expected a little less with something that’s only part Okkervil River, but their musical history is littered with brilliance that’s hard to ignore. The album feels as though it was a bit rushed and contains an unsettling air of insecurity. Overall it’s good, but not great. Exciting, but not for to long.

However, I must stress that if you get the chance, True Love Cast Out All Evil is worth checking out despite my negativity. Tracks such as Forever, Goodbye Sweet Dreams and Bring Back The Past are gems and make the album a worthwhile buy. With time, Roky Erickson & Okkervil River will improve and the songs will go with that. All the right elements are present but perhaps not in the right order just yet.
Understandably, fans of Okkervil River might be a little unsure as would those of Roky Erikson, but I’ve no doubt that this collaboration will win many more fans for both artists and for them as a group, than it alienates. I look forward to the next installment in as much hope as excitement.

Visit Roky Erickson & Okkervil River and get the album.
Visit Okkervil River (and get the brilliant Black Sheep Boy)
Visit Roky Erickson

Don't forget to visit the Mother-Blog over on Wordpress to get hold of Goodbye Sweet Dreams and album highlight Forever in their entirety. Both are excellent examples of when the combination of Okkervil River and Roky Erickson really does work. Dark and melodic, they're well worth a listen.

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The Flaming Lips - Race For The Prize (Audio)

Taken from the aformentioned album, The Soft Bulletin.

Storming first track, which showcases the album's experimental yet accessible style and singer Wayne Coyne's higher lyrical themes.

Listen on Tumblr

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Review: The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin

1999 was a fairly boring year in the grand, musical scheme of things. Notable releases came from old hats Blur and The Red Hot Chili Peppers and it also was the year that broke Sigur Ros and Eminem. But unless you’re an Eiffel 65 fan, that’s about it.

Fortunately for us however, 1999 was also the year that The Flaming Lips chose to release The Soft Bulletin and, ten years on, it still sounds just as fresh and original as it did then.

From the moment the raw drums of Race For The Prize kick in, The Flaming Lips transport you to their own world of psychedelic rock and only allow you to return after being transported around subjects such as Nobel prizes and astrophysics, and while it’s quite clearly an album from an experimental band, they’ve managed strip away the inaccessibility often found in the genre. The longest song clocks in at a non-progressive five minutes and fifty five seconds and there’s no over-the-top arrangements and no unnecessary guitar solos.

What we’re left with is the unusual song titles and their offbeat lyrics from the ‘70s, coupled with a melodic sheen from the ‘90s. This easily avoids a rehashing of bands from past decades and creates a progressive rock sound for the MTV generation.

After rip-roaring opener Race For The Prize, we move onto second track and album highlight A Spoonful Weighs A Ton. Opening with a black and white movie string section, it drifts along as an optimistic and uplifting song before, without warning, dropping into a Led Zeppelin inspired breakdown and emerging the other end as the uplifting track that entered around thirty seconds previously. It shouldn’t work, but effortlessly does.

Third track The Spark That Bled has an almost ethereal opening and soon develops into a relaxed call to arms against an unspecified oppressor, as evidenced by the refrain of “I Stood Up and I Said Yeah” and the final few lines of the country inflected bridge:

“The outreached hands had resigned themselves,
To holding onto something that they never had…
…'Cause in reality there was no reaction”

Similarly to A Spoonful Weighs a Ton, the floating sound of the song and the themes of the lyrics shouldn’t match up but they do. They work together to reinforce the idea and perhaps make it more effective.

After the almost instrumental The Observer and excellent, universe-filling track What Is The Light?, we find ourselves at the album’s second single and another standout track.

Waitin’ For a Superman is musically, the most straightforward track on the album. A simple four or five chord pattern, backed with stomping drums that deviate very little. It’s this simplicity however, that gives the song it’s weight and allows frontman Wayne Coyne’s actually quite sombre lyrics to really come thorugh. As the title suggests, this is song about disillusionment and the lyric “Is It Getting Heavy?”, is a direct question to a non-existent ‘superman’ who cannot deal with the problems as he should be able to. The final verse brings the song hope that works well with the track’s major key and shows that Coyne hasn’t lost faith in all of humanity after all:

“Tell everybody waiting for Superman
That they should try to hold on best they can”

Although these lyrics might at first seem wasted on such a simple and, musically speaking, happy track, it’s for precisely these reasons that the song has a weight and sadness that is better than any ballad would manage.

The only time the album gets close to losing itself in a psychedelic cloud is on ninth track The Gash. Despite having a chorus that is worthy of the album, it is lost somewhat in the mass of voices that form the basis of the track. A choir sings the majority of the melody and but for the booming drums and actually very good vocal melody, consumes the track in it’s unnecessary feeling of heaviness. I should point out this is a very minor and is probably more of a gripe with the mixing rather than the actual song

Dreamy but not pretentious, The Soft Bulletin sees the band move away from previous, more experimental sounds and embrace an almost childlike pop style. It has a pop sheen that is coupled with a fantastic sense of experiment that compliments the albums higher lyrical themes whilst remaining firmly on the ground. A concept album without a concept, it was the album that propelled The Flaming Lips out of the underground and firmly established them as one of the best and most popular bands to come out of the 90s.

On second thoughts, I don’t think I’ll bother with that Eiffel 65 review.

Buy the CD here Download the MP3s here Visit The Flaming Lips here

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