Okkervil River
's aptly titled
Sleep and Wake-Up Songs
is a five-song primer for the forthcoming full-length
Black Sheep Boy
. Led by the pained tenor of
Shearwater
frontman
Will Sheff
, the Lone Star State sextet mines the same vein of
Americana
as
the Scud Mountain Boys
and
Will Oldham
, focusing on the many guises of heartache with sharp lyrical imagery and
chamber pop
nuances.
Sheff
's protagonists are in a perpetual state of yearning. On the lonesome opener,
"A Favor,"
his love interest bemoans, "I would be anything that you wanted me to be/But how could I change my body," between bouts of alcohol-induced vomiting. Dark for sure, but the warm horns, weepy lap steel, and affective backing vocals from
Nicole Evans
pull much of the material out of the razor-lined bathtub. There's a general looseness to
that goes hand in hand with the EP format -- laid-back, key-ambivalent vocals and such -- but
's sharp references to everything from
Star Wars
sheets to slicing your flesh up with a pinecone, as well as the atmospheric arrangements, keep this slice of the bigger pie sweet and sinful. ~ James Christopher Monger