Review: Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst (2008)

In the aftermath of last year's Bright Eyes album, Cassadaga, fans were left wondering if their fearful leader, Conor Oberst, had lost his ability to commiserate and conjure up words to describe the latent teenage sadness that lives in their hearts (speaking from experience much?) The album was a massive disappointment, lacking the simplicity of Fevers & Mirrors and I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, the complexity of Lifted, the riskiness of Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and, most importantly, the nuanced lyrical prodigality of all three, for which Oberst is renowned.

On Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst's first "solo" release -- or rather, release not as Bright Eyes -- in over fourteen years (since age fourteen), he must walk the tight-rope of having developed two personalities since he first began recording himself in Omaha over half a lifetime ago. One is Bright Eyes, which began as a quavering voice, a lightly strummed guitar, and a tortured young soul. The spine chillingness with which Bright Eyes was able to deliver honest confessions of angst in a breaking, painful bark changed the face of indie music and remained in somewhat the same form until 2006's I'm Wide Awake. The other personality, Conor Oberst himself, loves bombastic blues and southern rock, along with performance-driven jams that make for very entertaining live shows, the likes of which tend to engulf any lyrical ability to the point of unrecognizability and insincerity. If there were any deeply emotional songs on Cassadaga, they were lost on most fans and critics. It's not that the album was bad as much as it just wasn't a Bright Eyes album...it was a Conor Oberst album.

That brings us to Conor Oberst (August 5, Merge Records), an almost-solo album, featuring The Mystic Valley Band, that attempts to blend the dual indie Bright Eyes-Oberst bluesrock personae. From open to close, Oberst is Oberst through and through. The musical simplicity and lyrical symbolism and minutia have returned, and it is clear from the opening notes of "Cape Canaveral" to the closing of "Milk Thistle" that he has not altogether abandoned his Bright Eyes self. Oberst has long been compared to Elliott Smith, and it has never shown more clearly than on "Lenders in the Temple," especially during the chorus "There's money lenders inside the temple/That circus tiger's gonna break your heart/Something so wild turned into paper/If I loved, well that's my fault." The words are clearly Oberst's, but the delivery is distinctly Smithian in its clarity and is virtually devoid of Oberst's previously signature vibrato bleating.

Still, Oberst manages to clear some room for his fresher self, maybe his truer self, in rocker songs like "Danny Callahan," "Sausalito," and "Moab," which are stylistically Cassadaga, but still attain timeless lyrical heights, of which we all know Oberst has always been capable. Even the musically predictable "Get-Well-Cards" is far more palatable than almost anything that appeared on Cassadaga (save for the deeply layered "No One Would Riot For Less"), but still can’t compare to even the meekest plea for help on his first cassettes. He only falters when attempting Spanish (the album was recorded in Mexico) on "Eagle on a Pole," in which he sings "El cielo es azul, just don't go telling everyone." On its own, this wouldn't be a bad lyric, but Oberst absolutely butchers the accent and ends up sounding...well...like someone from Omaha trying to speak Spanish. He isn't all stone-faced this time around though and, as their titles indicate, tracks like "Souled Out!!!" and "I Don't Want to Die (in the Hospital)" almost seem to poke fun at his younger, Bright Eyes self.

Conor Oberst is now twenty-eight years old. He was just a child when most of us fell in love with what he had to say and the beyond-Dylan pain with which he said it. Wide Awake was a reach for the past, and a beautifully successful one at that, and Cassadaga was an unsuccessful grasp at maturing before his time. But with Conor Oberst, he has managed to perform a miraculous balancing act of personalities. Our generation's sage has returned to form, speaking from our hearts through his own, and encouraging us not to resist his growth, but instead to join him in it.