Bright Eyes - Cassadaga Review [2]
Posted by James Munson on 04.11.2007
Conor Oberst’s latest long-player is arguably his most religious and politically-minded record to date. It’s not Bright Eyes’ swan song, but there are a few incredible tracks.
Nobody can accuse Conor Oberst of not being prolific. As far as indie/folk/country singer/songwriters go, he hasn’t caught up to Ryan Adams in quantity of recorded output (which is for the better, considering the generous amount of crap Adams has released compared to great tunes like those on his debut Heartbreaker). On the other hand, he’s productive enough to put out two albums at the same time (2005’s I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash In A Digital Urn), tour extensively for each separate album, and put out a live record.
Critics favored I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning considerably more than its counterpart, and for good reason. Building upon the expansive sound that Bright Eyes has been perfecting since Fevers and Mirrors and Lifted…, Wide Awake is all-at-once the most cohesive, musically varied, and lyrically clever album Oberst has ever created. The collaborations with Emmylou Harris and Jim James of My Morning Jacket only strengthen the album’s country/folk feel and stripped-down ballads like “Lua” exemplifies Oberst at his most vulnerable. Don’t get me wrong, “Gold Mine Gutted” is a pretty fantastic song from the Digital Ash record, but it’s no “Road of Joy”.
Considering this, it would make sense for Conor Oberst to continue down the same path that I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning embarked upon. Cassadaga, named after a town in Florida that Oberst visited, further pursues the country/folk-tinged ballads that are commonplace on every other Bright Eyes record. The guest list here is impressive, with Janet Weiss (of Quasi and the late Sleater-Kinney) playing drums, frequent Bright Eyes band member/solo artist Maria Taylor on vocals and drums, singer/songwriter Rachael Yamagata providing vocals, and indie troubadour M. Ward on guitar. The production is slightly better than previous records and there’s no shortage of musical accompaniment with glockenspiel, violin, flute, oboe, mandolin, vibraphone, ukulele, and other instrumentation in the mix.
The album begins with a female spoken voiceover discussing Cassadaga on the first track, “Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed)”. For the next minute or so, a plethora of string instruments blends together in a Peter and the Wolf-style disharmony until Oberst’s voice weaves through it all to declare, “Corporate or Colonial/The movement is unstoppable”. His politically and religiously fueled discourse is evident from the opening song (“Future markets, holy wars/Been tried ten thousand times before”). “Four Winds”, which was also included on an EP that preceded Cassadaga’s release, continues Oberst’s characteristically cynical lyrics with an up tempo, hoe-down-type melody (“The Bible’s blind, the Torah’s deaf, the Qu’ran’s mute/If you burn them all together you get close to the truth…”).
Other songs tackle subjects of love and reminiscing about times past. On the exceptional, shuffling “Hot Knives”, Oberst proclaims, “Oh, I’ve made love, yeah, I’ve been fucked, so what?” before pulsating arrangement of strings punctuates the bridge. The ballad that closes Cassadaga, an elegant number called “Lime Tree”, Oberst croons, “When I hear beautiful music it’s always from another time/Old friends I never visit, I remember what they’re like.” On “Classic Cars”, probably the most country-sounding song on Cassadaga, the final line cleverly warns to “never trust a heart that is so bent it can’t break.”
Ultimately, the flaws in Cassadaga lie in some of the slower tunes which sound a lot longer than they actually are. “No One Would Riot for Less” drags worst of all, despite the fact that it resembles the archetypical Bright Eyes ballad. “If the Brakeman Turns My Way” would have been slightly better off as a high quality b-side for the Four Winds EP, but is placed here as a so-so album track. This is not to say that Cassadaga is an unworthy effort, just semi-difficult to get into. There aren’t enough songs that are as instantly gratifying as anything on Lifted… or Wide Awake, but on the whole, this is a rather respectable album by a talented songwriter who has a lot more to offer in future releases. Let’s just hope his next project isn’t recording several albums of tongue-in-cheek gangster rap under various pseudonyms.
The 411: Neither the best Bright Eyes record nor the worst, Cassadaga is good enough to satiate the appetite of Conor Oberst devotees and Saddle Creek worshippers alike. The record has better production than other Bright Eyes albums (partly due to superb instrumentation), but a few of the tracks slow down the flow of an otherwise fine LP.
