Artist: Bright Eyes
Album: Cassadaga
Label: Saddle Creek
Release Date: April 10th, 2007
Decision: 4/5 A Worthy Purchase Indeed
Favorite Tunes: “Four Winds”, “If the Brakeman Turns My Way”, “Hot Knives”
1. The Background
You know the story. Mr. Conor Oberst sits in a basement making tracks of him crying and people are like, “oh, this is good!” and he starts a band. Album number 10 or something from this group came out last year. Influences range basically from religion to love and maybe some existentialist ideas.
2. The Substance
It’s good. Great sound quality and great instrumentation. Every song feels like it’s been thoroughly planned out, and at some points in the album, I really found it fascinating that a group could actually develop these ideas and form the type of song I was listening to. It makes me wonder how much influence the entire group has in song development. The first 4 or 5 tracks will have your ears at full attention, but just like you can’t listen to a lecture for more than 10 – 15 minutes, you’ll eventually start to get bored. I listened to this album in different ways: I listened front to back to see how long it held my attention, then from the middle to end to pay attention to the second half (because I already loved the first half). I decided this: BUY this album. It’s an amazing album, but if you don’t feel like shelling out the $$$$ for the disc, then purchase the first 4 tracks on iTunes or something or other and enjoy them. I could have done well with a 4-song EP with just those first 4 tracks and I would’ve listened the blasphemy out if it.
3. The Decision
4/5 A Worthy Purchase Indeed. Again, it’s a great album. It just suffers from being too long. I really like the first half, but the album’s arrangement gets a bit strange after a while. Bright Eyes starts out with this folky, country set that is energetic and powerful lyrically, but then the songs drift to this boring repetitious folk style that got old after Dylan did it 50 times, and then we shift to a mystic, tribal song style that just left me confused with the album’s focus. I don’t mind the genre-switching (ok, I do) but at least give me a reason for doing what you’re doing. These things are what prevent “Cassadaga” from being a perfect album. They left on some songs that seemed a bit like filler and maybe didn’t think about the complete package as much as they could have. This album excites me about future Bright Eyes albums, but I really hope Mr. Oberst doesn’t get too spaced out on me.
