Concerts

Experience something ‘Special’ with Will Sheff in Somerville

The evocative Okkervil River frontman will highlight material from his "solo" debut at Crystal Ballroom on Nov. 20.

Photo by Bret Curry

2 minutes to read

With nine highly satisfying albums as the leader of Okkervil River to his credit, Will Sheff has just released his first collection under the name that appears on his birth certificate.

Explaining his decision to dispense with his longtime moniker, the Meriden, New Hampshire, native said in a press release for “Nothing Special,” “At a certain point, you look at this thing you created when you were just a kid and you realize that you’re running out of room to grow with it, that you’re still wearing this costume that’s starting to smother you. Eventually, you’ve got no choice but to take it off.”

Okkervil River formed 25 years ago in Austin, Texas. Sheff – who composed all of the band’s material – and his partner recently moved from New York (City and upstate) to Los Angeles.

However, the 46-year-old frequently ventures to the place of his birth in his songwriter’s mind.

2013’s “The Silver Gymnasium” found Sheff looking back with understandably mixed emotions on his (very) small-town upbringing. He even included a map so that listeners could get a truer sense of where he long called home, and President Barack Obama placed one of its songs, “Down Down the Deep River,” on his 2015 summer playlist.

Now, on the opening track of his first “solo” effort, Sheff sings, “OK, they took the boy away from old New Hampshire….”

Clearly, the Granite State has not been taken away from him.

Tracks 2, 3, and 4 – but not in that order – appeared as singles in advance of the record’s Oct. 7 street date: “Estrangement Zone” (which mentions Waypoint, a town fewer than 10 miles from Meriden), “Nothing Special,” and “In the Thick of It,” to which solo artist and RISD graduate Cassandra Jenkins contributed vocals.

These songs are indicative of the relaxed tempo and more than somewhat resigned tone of the record, whose eight tracks average six minutes each.

Sheff has also said of his decision to be himself this time around, “For better or worse, I’ve often felt like it was my responsibility to deliver on someone else’s vision of who I am. At the heart of this album, though, is an impulse not to defy those expectations, but to exist peacefully outside them.”

That said, perhaps ticketholders should not be surprised if he opens or closes his Nov. 20 Crystal Ballroom performance with the 2016 song “Okkervil River RIP.”