{"id":41078,"date":"2008-09-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/conor-oberst\/"},"modified":"2008-09-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-02T00:00:00","slug":"conor-oberst","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/conor-oberst\/","title":{"rendered":"Conor Oberst"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the dog days of summer heat up, Bright Eyes frontman Conor Oberst is experiencing an understandable wanderlust on his most recent solo disc. <\/i>He pairs up with the Mystic Valley Band (which includes Nate Walcott, one of three permanent members of Bright Eyes along with Oberst and Mike<\/st1:personname> Mogis, absent for this album) and recruits longtime collaborator Andy LeMaster to engineer his first solo outing since 1996\u2019s Kill The Monster Before It Eats Baby.<\/i> Conor Oberst <\/i>is a country-rock record focused on movement, on escaping, themes that fit nicely with Oberst\u2019s searching, strained, oftentimes desperate vocals and the fact that he opted to record the album away from the US<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> in the Mexican city of Tepoztl\u00e1n<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

This worldly restlessness first manifests itself on opener \u201cCape Canaveral<\/st1:place>.\u201d Elegantly accompanied by light acoustic strums and muted percussion, this vivid recollection of the 1969 moon landing also highlights Oberst\u2019s winsome, unusually relaxed vocals. And despite how crammed tight each line is with layer upon layer of imagery, Oberst\u2019s lyrics still flow well and easily. \u201cLenders In The Temple\u201d has a similar stripped-down feel, at least instrumentation-wise. But the lyrics, delivered in Oberst\u2019s increasingly raw, impassioned vocals, are sharp, occasionally surreal, daggers, whether he\u2019s skewering American materialism (\u201cThere’s pink flamingos living in the mall\u201d) or the collapse of something even bigger in lines like \u201cThere’s money lenders inside the temple \/ That circus tiger’s gonna break my heart \/ Something so wild turned into paper \/ If you loved me, then that’s your fault.\u201d<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cSausalito<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u201d and \u201cDanny Callahan\u201d find Obest and crew channeling a carefree, swinging folk-rock sound, fitting in some soulful harmonies, upping the drums, and reintroducing some electric soloing courtesy of\u00a0 Taylor Hollingsworth. But it\u2019s \u201cI Don\u2019t Want To Die (In A Hospital)\u201d where the album really hits its stride (though it does take some getting used to, as this track is definitely a departure from the rest of the material here). Launching straight off with Nate Walcott\u2019s frenzied, honky-tonk piano riff, this is a bleakly hilarious tale of a bed-ridden narrator struggling to escape. The band is clearly enjoying itself, whether it\u2019s seen in Oberst\u2019s unhinged yelps or in the swaying guitar lines.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The second half of this disc has a looser, more carefree feel, epitomized by the chunky riffs of \u201cSouled Out!!!\u201d (the exclamation points alone give this raw, passionate burst away) and Oberst\u2019s ode to the road, \u201cMoab<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s nothing that the road cannot heal,\u201d he proclaims on the latter, which swerves straight into Oberst\u2019s own take on \u201cI Won\u2019t Back Down\u201d with his Petty-esque warbling and power strums, with some driving piano rhythms and Jason Boesel\u2019s pounding drums to round things out. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a couple tracks that end up getting lost in the shuffle, namely the fifty-second bugling of \u201cValle Mistico (Ruben\u2019s Song)\u201d and the forgettable stomp of \u201cNYC- Gone, Gone.” Meanwhile, \u201cEagle On A Pole\u201d is lovely yet a little derivative of \u201cLenders In The Temple,\u201d and it easily pales in comparison to the latter. Still, Oberst manages to close things off on a strong note with the stunning \u201cMilk Thistle.\u201d Oberst\u2019s lilting vocals and spare touches of acoustic guitar and bass convene with quietly evocative, yearning lines like, \u201cAll the light and sound\u00a0 \/ This little world’s too fragile now \/And there’s only one way out\u201d and the recurring image of a newborn trapped at the bottom of a well. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Oberst has managed to seamlessly combine freefalling energy with a mood of poignant reflection on this disc. It\u2019s a cohesive, inspired offering from a musician at once comfortable with his craft and increasingly innovative. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8270],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41078","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-conor-oberst","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41078"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}