Okkervil River

A companion piece to last year’s The Stage Names, The Stand Ins further represents the blossoming of Austin alt-rock heroes Okkervil River into an act with far greater breadth of scope and appeal. Okkervil’s lift from lo-fi to higher sonic and musical realms may not be the trendiest of moves, but Will Sheff’s poetic, conversational lyrics and fecund melodic sensibility rightly deserve the greater clarity and treatment they enjoy on this and the previous album. His quiver-and-swoop singing (sometimes to the very edge of pitch) has also risen to the occasion, dancing through the horns and strings on “Starry Stairs” and “Blue Tulip,” as well as enjoying a more stately pas de deux with them on the Leonard-Cohen-meets-early-John-Cale-backed-by-Calexico closer “Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979.” Add numbers like the invigorating “Lost Coastline,” the Dylanesque echo of “Singer Songwriter” and the exhilarating “Pop Lie” to the most pointed tunes on The Stage Names, and you have a widescreen, Technicolor rumination on show biz to rival a masterwork like the Kinks’ Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround.   — ROB PATTERSON