Okkervil River

To follow-up the acclaimed Black Sheep Boy, Will Sheff and company remain nervy as they turn things up, beginning with a trio of sharp-edged up-tempo tunes before offering a string-heavy confessional in "Savannah Smiles." It isn't until the final number, "John Allyn Smith Sails," that Sheff really flexes the intellectual muscles, though; the tune gives a first-person account of poet John Berryman's suicide using a wink-and-nudge quote of "Sloop John B."