The best records always reside on their own little planet, a few orbits away from the rest of the music in their midst. Okkervil River's stunning sophomore release, Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See, is no exception. It's a truly sprawling work that's never afraid to hyperextend itself in the hopes of attaining something better than the pedestrian indie-rock it will undoubtedly be filed beside in record store shelves. The Austin, Tex. based band covers a lot of stylistic ground on the albums nine tracks, shifting expertly between loping western style ballads ("Kansas City"), downcast folk dirges ("My Bad Days") and frantic horn fueled pop ("Lady Liberty"), with a good deal in between.

Unsurprisingly, their music has already garnered rave reviews in the nine months since Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See was released on the cred-heavy Jagjaguwar record label. Industry heavy hitters in the United States (Rolling Stone) and England (Mojo) have weighed in with the verdice that Okkervil River is truly something special. Now for the best part of all, their bandleader is a Macalester graduate, singer/guitarist Will Robinson Sheff '98 (I've never felt more Fighting Scot pride as a music fan).

Okkervil River are clearly a 'rock critics' sort of band: cerebral, epic, and working from a wide range of influences, which is why it wasn't surprising to learn that Sheff supports himself with a day job as a music journalist for a number of prestigous publications. The dual role of critic/musician, however, is one Sheff finds challenging.

"Part of me really wants to get out of doing music criticism," explains Sheff. "Ever since I started doing crticism, it's been twice as hard to write songs. When you're writing a song you have to be willing to take a leap of faith and try something that may seem really stupid initially. The best songs usually come out of taking that stupid thing and making it work. Self consciousness is unbelievably destructive to creativity. Music criticism is all about the analytical part of the mind. If you start analyzing what your creating, you'll fuck up. You have to just let go and do it. It's very very hard. I feel really lucky that I'm still able to write songs. Being a music critic can also be discouraging because it can make music seem less special. You realize how many bands are out there that are 'just fine,' and there's only a certain amount of 'just fine' bands that you can take. Music can just become this banal thing in your life. It's important for me to remember that doing music is a magical elemental vocation, instead of just a game that you're playing to get hype. I think I'm able to do that though."

Okkervil River clearly aims to make 'magical' music defying easy categorization, and largely succeeds in doing so, but their Texan background and heavy use of 'Americana' associated instrumentation (mandolins, pedal steels and banjos) invariably leads to a hastily applied alternative country tag by many lazy critics. "The alt. country label is frustrating but I'm getting a little bit better about dealing with it," Sheff admits. "We really do love old folk music and non-rock instruments which is where the whole label has come in, but from what I understand about the genre I just don't like it. This whole 'No Depression' movement of bands just seems like carpetbagging minstrel acts to me. If we absorb a tiny bit of the energy of old country music then that's great, but we never meant to be lumped in with anybody like Whiskeytown. To me that stuff is extremely insincere, like a Vaudeville act."

If alternative country is predominantly the terrain of insincere poseurs (a point certainly open to some debate), then it's clear that Okkervil River don't fit in with that camp. Although blatantly drawing some degree of inspiration from roots oriented music, Okkervil River revamp traditional Americana by injecting it with a layered studio intensive approach.

The end result is far different from any music that's come before it. Songs like the dreamy "Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas" float by on warm organ tones, gently plucked acoustic guitars and dramatic orchestral flourishes. Okkervil River's songs come across feeling equally rooted in the stars above as in the soil of Texas.

"This time around we really just wanted to make lush and orchestrated music," explains Sheff. "Brian [Beattie, the record's producer] had us work in the studio with a flat rate up front so we never worried about time. He told us if we finished the record and hated it that we would just do it again. The unlimited time gave us the chance to try every possible thing. We played the basics of the song live and purposely left a lot of space for other elements to come in later. Then we brought in different people and slowly fleshed out the instrumentation. It really felt good because it was how we always wanted it to be. We were recording thinking of soul records as an influence, just that fullness and richness of sound."

The sonic world of Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See is unquestionably rich with small details, but Sheff's ragged voice still takes center stage on most of the record. Sheff's songs of regret and loss are frequently punctuated by bouts of riveting vocal spasms that mark him as a unique and unforgettably expressive singer (those in need of a good chill need only check out the harrowing final verse of "Kansas City").

Okkervil River craft highly dramatic music with an uncompromisingly arty bent—ingredients at complete odds with notions of widespread commercial success, a fact that Sheff readily acknowledges, "I don't think a band like us well ever get that big, we're too morose, too rural sounding, and too extreme in sentiment." Sheff's conclusions seem accurate when examining commercial radio's cultural wasteland, which is a shame given the level of artistry and depth of feeling present in every moment of his band's latest effort.

Fortunately, Sheff isn't deterred by dim commercial prospects and sounds optimistic that if the general public ever get to hear Okkervil River at least some will connect with it strongly. "What's happened to rock that's ruined it is that there's so much money and control involved that no good music comes onto the radar in the mainstream world," explains Sheff. "I strongly believe that if the general public has the choice between artistically powerful and valid product and the shit that they're normally exposed to they won't take the shit anymore. People will pick up the good music."

Get exposed to Okkervil River, you won't regret it.