Mermaid / Walked Out On A Line

this exclusive 12" with download from okkervil river precedes a brand new album. 'mermaid' is the darkest song you'll hear all year: a self-contained fable shot through with evocative and disturbing imagery but rising to a sweeping, romantic, oddly moving climax. this waltz-time ballad gestures towards the tattered folk of okkervil river's beloved 2005 album 'black sheep boy', but somehow unearths something much more mysterious and blurrily ambiguous. with 'walked out on a line' we get a glimpse of what might further emerge. choral and atmospheric and stripped of any of the acoustic textures that have defined much of the band's past work, 'walked out on a line' is a smooth-sailing symbolist fever-dream, fractured and impressionistic lyrics floating over a sea of sighing voices, glittering rhodes, and a gently driving beat. it's an ambitious statement about how much innovative fuel the band has to burn, an as fleeting a 5:20 song as you're likely to hear.