Shearwater

Okkervil River (Jagjaguwar)
It might seem counterintuitive, but a new release by an adored artist isn’t always cause for celebration. As followers of Prince and Guided by Voices know, prolific performers inevitably sacrifice some degree of quality for quantity.

Okkervil River is showing some of these saturation-syndrome tendencies. Since 2003, the Austin, Texas, outfit has issued a brilliant full-length, a split EP, a tour-only oddity and Sleep and Wake-up Songs. In addition, the group’s songwriter, Will Sheff, and pianist, Jonathan Meiburg, double as members of Shearwater, which released its own standout record and two EPs in the same span. Given its current pace, history suggests that this creative core will eventually produce a collection of clunkers. But for now, the Midas touch remains intact. On Sleep and Wake-up Songs, icy imagery dominates frigid folk lullabies. Sheff might never exhaust his supply of obtuse metaphors — dark diamond mines, unreachable shores — and his voice remains as delicately despondent as ever, making untied sound like an almost fatally fatigued I’m tired while stretching syllables with gentle grace.

An alarmingly assertive companion to Sleep‘s luxurious somnolence, Thieves opens with glacial chord progressions before erupting with an epic orchestral chorus and collapsing into a quiet coda. Meiburg can still pull off a fluttering falsetto, but for the first time his ghostly quiver gives way to a commanding delivery. On “Mountain Laurel,” he roars over massive marching-band percussion with forlorn fiddles tethering the band to its rustic roots. Thieves is the group’s best release yet, proof that for some musicians, studio practice really does make perfect.