Once tagged "rock's boy genius" by the music press, Conor Oberst
turns 27 on February 15th and even without that in mind it's hard
to listen to Cassadaga without hearing a newfound sophistication
to the Bright Eyes sound. Producer, multi-instrumentalist and
permanent band member Mike Mogis has crafted a swirling,
euphonious record, at times bursting with bombastic confidence
and country swagger, and at others loose-limbed and mesmeric.
Trumpet and piano player Nate Walcott, a Bright Eyes player since
2003 and now the third permanent member, is responsible for the
cinematic string arrangements. Other than a handful of live
appearances and the release of a collection of B-sides &
rarities, Bright Eyes kept mostly out of in 2006 after the
busy 2005 which saw the simultaneous release of the sister albums
Digital Ash In A Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning.
Should you have looked for them you'd have found them tucked away
in various studios around the country. for the first
time outside of the Lincoln, NE studio belonging to Mogis, the
Bright Eyes cast of players were busy in studios in Portland, OR,
New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. The result is the band's
most confident work so far, an album so full of soaring strings
and female harmonies that it feels almost buoyant in comparison
to previous releases. While many latched onto the smattering of
political commentary in 2005's I'm Wide Awake..., Cassadaga is
less blunt in its depiction of youthful exasperation in the Bush
era. References to Hurricane Katrina, holy wars and polar
ice-caps may crop up, but they're buried deep amongst the
ruminations on life, love, history, death and the afterlife. If
I'm Wide Awake... was "the New York City album", then Cassadaga
is "the America album", in which Oberst diaries his travels
around the country and articulates his sense of history in the
landscape. In first single "Four Winds" he is "off to old Dakota
where genocide s/in the Black Hills, the Badlands, the
calloused East/I buried my ballast, I made my peace." Cassadaga
itself crops up in the same song. The town, a community for
psychics in central Florida, is visited in order to "commune with
the dead". This wandering spirit is crystalized in "I Must Belong
Somewhere" a song which was already a ste of live shows by the
end of the 2005. "Hot Knives" is particularly spirited, bringing
to mind the true energy of a Bright Eyes show. Likewise, "Soul
Singer In A Session Band" - a rousing paean to an oxymoronic
profession - enlists all of the elements which make the Bright
Eyes live band such a euphoric experience. "Make A Plan To Plan
To Love Me" is Bright Eyes at their most playful; a straight-up
love song, replete with girl group vocals and Burt Bacharach
strings. Oberst, the fumbling guitarist whose impassioned prose
tumbles out under stark stage spotlights, is still recognizable
in every track, but the songs are rich with elaborate production,
cinema-sized orchestration and, at times, sprawling, almost
psychedelic, atmospherics. The line up of Bright Eyes players
includes Andy Lemaster (Now It's Overhead), Ben Kweller, Gillian
Welch, David Rawlings, Janet Weiss (ex-Sleater Kinney), Jason
Boesel (Rilo Kiley), John McEntire (Tortoise) M.Ward, Maria
Taylor and Rachael Yamagata.
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On their sixth and most straightforwardly clean album,
Nebraska's Bright Eyes once again integrate a revolving cast of
players to the mix, including Portland tunesmith M. Ward and
alt-country queen Gillian Welch. But the band remains at the helm
of forever-wunderkind Conor Oberst, and the fruitful songwriter
has one-upped 2005's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning with a
proficient and accessible ensemble of expansive pop
orchestrations and ornate folk songs that chronicle his traverses
across the American panorama. Oberst's voice quakes and wanders
through South Dakota lore and Sunshine State chicanery, always
the perfect vehicle for his threadbare lyrics. "Take the fruit
from the tree/Break the skin with your teeth/Is it bitter or
sweet/All depends on your timing," he forewarns in "Cleanse
Song," a psychedelic merry-go-round of a soundtrack that joins
the Scottish-tinged "Soul Singer in a Session Band" and singalong
single "Four Winds" as Cassadaga's finest. The 13-song-record is
certain to open more doors for a band whose re has
soared with every release since Oberst was just 14. --Scott
Holter
