A childlike whimsy colors the intro to Down The River Of Golden Dreams, with a seemingly half-remembered childhood memory of a scratchy 45 being played and introduced by an elderly family member. The album indeed often conflates decidedly adult themes with childhood neuroses and comforts. Rollicking rave-ups collide with pensive, threadbare numbers, but many of the motifs that pervade Okkervil’s albums past and present burn brightly here. Nonjudgmental examinations of transgressions abound, be it the contrite protagonist of “The War Criminal Rises and Speaks,” or the bereft man, seemingly consoled by Sheff, who has recently been separated from his wife (“Yellow”), or the couple cheating on Maine Island (“Main Island Lovers”), who “read without irony from a book my husband bought for me.” Sure, there’s adultery and sundry sins that would recur in perhaps more graphic form in later Okkervil albums, but Golden Dreams finds a certain doe-eyed innocence rushing headlong into the unmitigated pain of adulthood.