Like many people, my interest in Conor Oberst was ignited by his album under the Bright Eyes moniker, 2002’s Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground<\/i>. Hands down one of the best albums of that year, that masterpiece propelled Oberst into the international spotlight. Subsequent albums from Bright Eyes had some fine moments\u2014nearly paralleling the greatness of Lifted<\/i>\u2014though at some point my interest waned. I haven’t heard any of his more recent albums, so I figured it was time to check out what the Omaha native was up to.<\/p>\n
Speaking of Omaha, after residing in New York for over a decade, Oberst holed himself up back in his birthplace to create Ruminations <\/i>over the winter. \u201cToo Late To Fixate\u201d starts things off with a full sound where violins, harmonicas and Oberst’s boyish, confessional vocals illustrate his clever storytelling. \u201cGossamer Thin\u201d follows and brings the volume down, offering a more reflective tune not unlike his work as Bright Eyes. By the third track, \u201cOverdue,\u201d it’s apparent that Oberst is sticking with a particularly raw formula here, though some sly guitar work makes this one stand out, and the more aggressive percussion and gang vocals from \u201cAfterthought\u201d offer a nice addition.<\/p>\n
While the first handful of songs are nothing to spit at, by the time we reach \u201cNext Of Kin,\u201d the stellar songwriting Oberst is so known for arises, with a sparse piano and harmonica ballad. This moves directly into the rowdy roots rocker \u201cNapalm.\u201d The middle of the album offers us the warm Americana of \u201cMamah Borthwick (A Sketch),\u201d which sounds like it could have been on Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning.<\/i><\/p>\n
The second half of the album has some noteworthy moments, such as the folky \u201cEmpty Hotel By The Sea,\u201d where organs add greatly, and the lush, classic rock influence of \u201cA Little Uncanny,\u201d but mostly, Oberst stays dark and sparse, with incredible lyricism to illuminate his thoughts.<\/p>\n
An album that certainly has less mass appeal than his past work, at its core Salutations<\/i> is an album with piano, harmonica, acoustic guitar and Oberst’s warbling voice. Though that might not sound like much, in the hands of one of the greatest songwriters of this generation, it’s plenty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8270],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45124","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-conor-oberst","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45124","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\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45124"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}