Jagjaguwar Records (2011) - 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 ambiguous. With Walked Out On a Line we get a glimpse of what might further emerge. It's choral and atmospheric and stripped of any of the acoustic textures that have defined much of the band's past work.  

Download code included.