“Stay Young”- Okkervil River

Okkervil River’s newest album, The Silver Gymnasium is all about the past. The trotting piano of “It Was My Season” allowed frontman Will Sheff the chance to sift through the rubble of youth in attempt to fit the pieces back together, to no avail. The motoring synth of “Down Down the Deep River” drove Sheff closer to the heart, to shivering lake dives and late-night car rides. For their newest trip down memory lane, the band has issued “Stay Young”, the most musically nostalgic cut yet. An 80s-indebted synthesizer enters the scene while Sheff mutters “it’s all gone” and cries of long lonely times. Slipping further back, a squawking saxophone takes the stage only to be upended by a harmonica. The focus is firmly on Sheff though, warning “the world goes to it’s work and it is not gentle, it what it breaks you down into.” Having undergone the process himself, Sheff longs for a time when the weight of the world was a lot lighter.

Listen to the song here and look for the LP to drop September 3 via ATO Records.