I'm a big Okkervil River fan, and I profess to not like Stage Names. But I know it's not because it isn't good, it's just not what I was wanting to have happen. I could see someone being the same way with Josh Ritter. His old stuff had a very living room with a guitar romanticism about it. Historical Conquests drops underwater every other song and pops up miles away.

Hmm, I just gave this album a first listen and I like it. Lyrics on the first song and "Temptation of Adam" are pretty good. The sound... well, it's nothing I haven't heard before, but I still like it.

"Still Beating" reminds me a lot of the song "Laid" by the band James.

I just gave this album a first listen. Wow! Great stuff. I dug his last one a lot too.

Finally! Only five reviews, but it just jumped to the top of Metacritics music list with an 89%. Probably won't stay that high, but it definitely deserves the score.

Maybe now more people will start paying attention to it.

Well, people's gripes about Pitchfork have been answered. They reviewed Historical Conquests.

Yeah. I commented about it elsewhere. I realize now that they probably were waiting to review it because they knew they were going to give it a bad rating, and it was being advertised on their site. So they gave it a month and then body slammed it.

It's a bum review. I would have been okay with them giving it a 7.0-7.5 at the very least, although it deserves much higher. a 5.7 is just very questionable. And you can't review the album and never mention "The Temptation of Adam". It's definitely one of it's major key points. Also, rating an album lower critisizing the singer because he can actually sing is in bad form. Josh is not trying to be Carey Mercer, Spencer Krug or Avey Tare in his vocal style.

Doesn't change my opinion on the album or anything. I just hope all the indie kids will at least still give it a chance.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadrach is a bag of Marshmallows:
Doesn't change my opinion on the album or anything. I just hope all the indie kids will at least still give it a chance.

It's a shame P4K has such power over the crowd. It's basically another media outlet that people depend on for finding what's next. Which is exactly what I was running from.

Anyway, this is album is very solid with some great tracks. I just seem to never understand P4K so whatever, I'll never read them .

Does anyone else think that "Moons" could be the album's best song if it were longer?

I love the way it sounds, but it's only 51 seconds long and that kills me.

I agree that Moons is great. I wish he would expand out a lot of his songs.

But part of the joy of the album is the fact that is just comes and goes and such odd intervals. It adds a lot of mystery and excitement that you really have no idea what is going to happen next.