There’s a few reasons why, if you haven’t already heard of and/or listened to Okkervil River, you should go check them out right now. (seriously, right now.) I’m going to do this in bullet point form.

• They’ve been going strong since 1998, which means they’ve had no less than 13 years to develop their sound and figure out the best ways to collaborate
• They’re signed to Jagjaguwar Records, which is also home to artists like Bon Iver and Volcano Choir
• They take their name from a Russian short story, which is cool
• Their lead singer looks like this
• They’re releasing their new album TODAY, so you can listen to their very current work as well as some of their older stuff
• They’ll be at the Wiltern Theatre on Wilshire Blvd on June 23, so there’s still time to listen to them, love them, and buy tickets!

Okkervil River started off as lead singer Will Sheff’s high school project. After leaving for college and realizing that everything he had considered doing for a career turned out to be “frighteningly, depressingly boring”, he decided to give the music thing another try, and the band reunited in Austin in 1998. Since then, they’ve released five albums and have appeared on major TV networks a few times, including this past January when they played on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Their newest album, I Am Very Far, is set to release on May 10. As described by a contributor to Drowned in Sound music blog, the album “calls upon the gods of fiction, poetry, and theatre to deliver a dual sonic and lyrical masterstroke, poised to elegantly blow your doors from their hinges.” Pretty much word-for-word what I was thinking.

For me, the most remarkable thing about Okkervil River is their ability to combine the energy and recklessness of rock music with some of the most beautiful, thought-provoking lyrics I’ve ever heard. From “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene”, off The Stage Names: “I’m a man in a dream, and there, dancing in front of my eyes, is a queen. Formed out of flaws, with her eyes all gone odd, and a rod bolted into her spine. She rises up like a yawn, grips my heart like a claw, splits apart like a jaw, like an eye. And she asks me with a sigh, ‘When we’re so far from right, when we’re losing the fight, when we’re letting the light weaken its beam — is there a hand to take hold of the scene?’” Dizzying lyrics like this sound like something out of an 18th century book of poetry. Now go listen to the song on YouTube or something. I bet you weren’t expecting all that exhaustingly upbeat drumming and trumpeting and hand clapping.

This will be my first time seeing Okkervil River perform live, and I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see all of the passion that is clearly put into the band’s writing and performance come alive on stage. Tickets are on sale now, but I think they’re going to sell out pretty quick so you better fall in love with the band and get to the box office soon. Titus Andronicus opens by the way.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Sheff on the band’s success:

“We’ve had just enough success. I guess I would define success as moments where I’m having a really, really good time. Even though there are moments that are frightening because I don’t have any health insurance.”