The Silver Gymnasium

Okkervil River - The Silver Gymnasium
Critic Score
Based on 28 reviews
2013 Ratings: #252 / 1115
User Score
Based on 45 ratings
Liked by 1 person
September 3, 2013 / Release Date
LP / Format
ATO / Label
Indie Rock / Genre
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
PopMatters

The Silver Gymnasium isn’t nostalgic—it’s factual. It’s real. It all happened and can’t again. And that is magical: “We can never go back. We can only remember.”

90
Consequence of Sound

I’m not sure if I’d call it a completely happy album, as there’s still darkness creeping around the edges, and also because it defies simplification. And yet maybe that’s the point. Okkervil River wanted to create something that was accessible. They wanted to create something that had warmth.

83
Pretty Much Amazing

For the most part, Silver Gymnasium makes for an uplifting and triumphant listen, with a positive energy running through the music and the melodies.

83
A.V. Club

Unlike the labored Very Far, this time the songs seem to pour out of Sheff, fueling the band’s jauntiest, peppiest record since 2007’s The Stage Names.

81
Paste

Sheff has succeeded in capturing a specific time and place. It puts you in his world and lets you feel a time when things felt new, with all of the potential and promise that life held before it reared its ugly head. 

81
Beats Per Minute

We already knew that they could write and play grand and anthemic songs, but this album finds them going all-out in swashbuckling revelry for the most part, and it suits them better than anyone might have expected. 

80
Under the Radar

While the music often shows a strength and hope, The Silver Gymnasium is largely a heartbreaking record. 

80
AllMusic

Sheff's willingness to strike a balance between his roots rock past and his personal past should please longtime fans and newbies alike, even if they spend the majority of the ride wondering why the tour bus never actually stops at the Silver Gymnasium.

80
Tiny Mix Tapes

As a whole, it splits the difference between an impossible past and a lost future, churning up a rich emotional froth that — like the best of 80s pop itself — seems by turns angry, giddy, and seriously tragic.

tha138
71

New label, old habits. Anthemic, power-pop that invites the sunshine from the main entrance to warm the anxiety.

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Track List

  1. It Was My Season
  2. On a Balcony
  3. Down Down the Deep River
  4. Pink-Slips
  5. Lido Pier Suicide Car
  6. Where the Spirit Left Us
  7. White
  8. Stay Young
  9. Walking Without Frankie
  10. All the Time Every Day
  11. Black Nemo
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Added on: June 10, 2013