In their latest album, Cassadaga, Bright Eyes has left the rock fold to officially join in the new country movement. They haven’t become alt-country, but Conor has definitely taken the Bob Dylan comparisons to heart. The last two Bright Eyes albums were released almost simultaneously in 2005. There was Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, a largely electronic rock album, and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, which was pretty much a country album. Although Digital Ash in a Digital Urn had some worthwhile songs, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning was obviously the standout album of the two. For one thing, it was rich with beautiful poetics and sharply critical of American culture, which is a Conor Oberst stalwart, and for another it was musically and heartfully inspired from the very first song.
On Cassadaga Bright Eyes brings on slide guitar, organ, and a slough of the classic country arrangements to fit right in with Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, and Emma Lou Harris, as far as instrumentation and song structures are concerned. But Conor knows where his strength lies and it is in powerfully poetic lyrics sung in his faltering and quivering croon.
Cassadaga sounds like a recent Bob Dylan album, only without the somber accumulation of years behind it, making it sometimes come off as insincere. Tracks like ‘Make a Plan to Love Me’ and ‘Lime Tree’ seem a little contrived and drag on the continuity of the album, the other tracks are like anthemic Americana.
While many of the longtime Bright Eyes fans say that the 2000 release Fevers and Mirrors was their pinnacle album and they have been on the downhill ever since, I predict that Conor still has a lot of great songs yet to come out of him, and Cassadaga certainly has a few of them (check out the song ‘Hot Knives’).
What I didn’t know, until I heard it around the water cooler, is that Cassadaga is a town in Northern Florida that has a high population of psychics. Wikipedia even refers to it as the “psychic capitol of the world.” Omaha musicians seem to be in love with the idea of album themes, as evidenced by every Cursive release, but Cassadaga only loosely follows the psychic theme. Songs such as ‘Four Winds’ and ‘Coat Check Dream Song’ adhere to the theme of séances and “the east,” but overall the album is more about Conor’s own removal from his usual California-to-Omaha Western-ness than it is about Cassadaga, Florida.
The album does start out with an almost Revolution Number 9 intro behind a conversation with a psychic. Perhaps one of the psychics you get when you call 1-888-CASSADAGA. And the album is certainly laden with the laid-back ideals of the South. From ‘If the Brakeman Turns My Way’ to ‘I Must Belong Somewhere’ there is a jubilant sense of resignation to this country album.
I would be remiss not to mention that this album has the best packaging I have seen since they stopped mass-marketing vinyl. The cover looks like a blotchy gray until you run the Ouiji-like eye over it and see the images concealed in the cover art. Conor’s poetry is as sharp, insightful, and articulate as ever and that makes up for any amount of boredom the country formula brings to this Bright Eyes album.
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EU Critic’s Choice Awards
