Where Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff really breaks new ground is in his recognition of the bathos and self-absorption required to fuel a song that resonates anymore—what bastards his kind must be. The hardest to suss out of the New Literary set (the shticky Hold Steady, garish Decemberists, and wordsmith's-wordsmith Mountain Goats), Okkervil River has more in common with Cursive, another stage-obsessed indie faction that bemoaned comparable success five years ago with writer's-block-blues laments like "Art Is Hard" and "Butcher the Song." Sheff doesn't spare his songs either, and it works only insofar as he refuses to get... More >>>