Bright Eyes are one of my favourite groups. Their 2000 album Fevers and Mirrors is among my all time favourites. So it is with great interest and some minor trepidation that I approach any new release from them.
An album that you love is like a fly trapped in amber. It's beautiful, and perfectly preserved, but it only represents a single moment in time. A classic album is great for an artist to have in their catalogue, but it can also weigh them down. Many artists will wear themselves out repeating and emulating their success hoping that people want more of the same. Some will run as far in the other direction creatively as they can, trying to outrun the shadow of their success, fearing that they will be viewed as sellouts because people like their music.
Not that Bright Eyes are threatening the U2s of the world in terms of audience and sales, but they've had some success, and more importantly some critical acclaim. Somehow they've managed through it all to maintain their credibility, and most of their fan base.
So anyone expecting Bright Eyes circa 2011 to sound like Bright Eyes circa 2000 should just put on Fevers and Mirrors again. Songwriter Conor Oberst has made the journey from 20 to 31 in the intervening years, and he's matured both as a person and a songwriter. He's lost none of his poetry in the meantime, but his songs sound more like poetry and less like teenage whining (teenage whining that I love that is).
Bright Eyes have a habit of opening their albums with an odd spoken piece, and the tradition continues here with a quasi religious rant about reptilian aliens interbreeding with the ancient Samarians and eventually creating Hitler... it's possibly even weirder than it sounds. The rant is revisited a couple of times on the album, and every time I listen I feel like I'm closer to grasping what it's all about, but then the music distracts me and I lose my enlightenment. I'm pretty sure it's about love in the end though.
So how's the album? It's great. The band are really having fun for once, Conor's lyrics are as sharp as ever, but these songs sound less like they ewre written alone in a bedroom, and more like they were written on and for a stage. There's still quieter, more introspective moments like Approximate Sunlight and Ladder Song, and I expect they'll reveal their secrets over many many listens, but the immediate joys here are the rock songs. Jejune Stars wouldn't be out of place on a Strokes album, Shell Games is lightly basted in warm synthesisers, and Triple Spiral (complete with do do/whoah oh backing vocals) is the best song Weezer never wrote.
As usual there are some lyrical through lines. Hitler comes up in the songs as well as in the weird opening, and there's more than a few references to rastafarianism scattered throughout. What does it all mean? I've honestly no idea, but it's refreshing to have lyrics that leave a little room for interpretation.
So as a Bright Eyes fan, and lover of music, I really enjoyed the album. It's easy to pick up and listen to, but promises revelations on further and deeper listening. A fine addition to a stellar catalogue.
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