Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See by Okkervil River

Okkervil River
Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See
2002
Folk
Jagjaguwar

1. Red
2. Kansas City
3. Lady Liberty
4. My Bad Days
5. Westfall
6. Happy Hearts
7. Dead Dog Song
8. Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas
9. Okkervil River Song
(Also included is a 1200x1200 album cover .jpeg)

Red is my favorite color.
Red, like your mother's
Eyes after a while
Of crying about how you don't love her.
She says "I know I don't deserve
Supervised sight of her
But each day becomes a blur
Without my daughter."

"Red"

Okkervil River is one of my all time favorite bands. As a whole, I would call them a folk band, but on Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See, they live on the fine line between folk and bluegrass. And I love it for that. Okkervil River is best known for creating the masterpeice and accompaniment Black Sheep Boy and the Black Sheep Boy Appendix, respectively. That saga as a whole is probably up in the top 5 of my favorite albums. However, I think that this album is a better way to be introduced to the band.

Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See is Okkervil River at the rootsiest, but it's also the band at their saddest. All their releases are very somber and deal with emotional subject matter. But while Black Sheep Boy and Appendix combats frontman Will Sheff's torn heart with anger and vengeful energy, Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See feels broken and defeated. It also features one of the saddest songs you're likely to ever hear, "Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas."

The music behind it all is deeply rooted in bluegrass. The songs are led solely by acoustic guitar and Will Sheff's crackling voice, and are joined from time to time by harmonica, mandolin, pedal steel, and violin. Though at the same time, they keep it sounding fresh and new with respect to the music of their past. It's a very modern folk album.

I also really like that they chose to keep this album short. At 9 tracks, it's 45 minutes long, and goes on for just the right amount of time before ending with a short ambient passage of a chirping forest. My only complaint is the awful vocalist who they got to split the vocals with Will Sheff on "Happy Hearts." Man, that guy is horrible. I like Will's parts of the song, though.

Click here to download part 1 (62.45 MB)
Click here to download part 2 (52.14 MB)

One f-bomb exactly.

Buy it!
CD / Digital Copy