The hyper-literate Austin, Texas band Okkervil River are prepping their new LP The Silver Gymnasium for release on September 3, as a follow-up to 2011's I Am Very Far. Returning to the concept-album successes of Black Sheep Boy and The Stage Names, frontman Will Sheff writes on Twitter: "the new record takes place in 1986 in a small town in New Hampshire." A trotting piano-figure embodies that small-town feeling and summons up the spirit of the past. Sheff is haunted by that spirit, recalling a time when "my mind was just revving." The sort of time when even the smallest pain felt like a mortal wound no heart could overcome. "I won't say I'm sorry, and how would they know? Below the Atari, well I could feel your heart was just going," Sheff sings. For some in the midst of a great ride all that starts to matter is when will it end? As a crescendo builds with the piano and drums, Sheff accepts "that was our season," feebly attempting to salvage what is now rubble. By the end, Sheff looks back on the fog of the past and chalks it up to being "mixed up," but still remembers "that head filled with doubt." Sometimes, there's just no making sense of a time when logic was the last thing on anyone's mind.
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