There\'s no doubt that I could clearly talk about the marked improvement sonically and songwriting wise on Bright Eyes new album Cassadaga. Then again, I could also talk about the album\'s shortcomings such as Connor Oberst\'s crooning whimper of a vocal and the generic song production that runs rampant throughout the disc. But first, I\'m going to start off by talking about the artwork on the CD\'s packaging.
By leaps and bounds, this is the best thing Cassadaga has going for it.
What may look like an ordinary gray cover with a small logo in the middle of it, soon turns into something much more: the artwork is actually a collection of hidden images that are only able to be seen under the lens of a little decoder that comes packaged with the disc. It may sound like a gimmick, but to me this is quite the innovative little invention. The mysterious images and sayings that are decoded in the process seems tie in well with the lyrical content on the disc, dealing less with the childish whimpering that plagued their earlier albums and paving the way for more enlightening subject matter, but not completely abandoning the sappy emotional love songs.
While many of Bright Eyes\' earlier albums were given glowing reviews by many music critics (see: 2005\'s Wide Awake It\'s Morning) there were a number of things on songwriter Connor Oberst\'s earlier works that didn\'t settle so well with me. For starters his vastly overrated vocals and lyrical content, which most critics praised. Vocally, Oberst pours out a lot of emotion into his sorrowful singing, reminiscent somewhat of say Emo songster Chris Carrabba, but without the pipes. Likewise, the folk rock song structure is more reminiscent of say Alt-Country group Wilco, but without the complexity or vocal ability of one Jeff Tweedy.
Cassadaga sees Bright Eyes heading in a couple new directions. First, the Springsteen-like urgency that they\'ve hung their hats on in the past is stripped away to create a slower, more methodical sound. While lyrically Connor takes a bit of a U-Turn on us with Cassadaga, shaping a good portion of his songwriting into more spiritually challenging and far more thought provoking compositions. The first single off the album, "Four Winds" could be called the link between old and new. Though it\'s one of the catchiest songs on the disc it\'s disheartening prophetic message looms over it like a dark storm cloud:
"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."
Though that statement seems firm enough, Connor\'s struggle with a higher being takes center stage on the next track, the lush and symbolic "If The Brakeman Turns My Way," where he likens a train\'s brakeman to the question of fate in one\'s life.
It\'s quite obvious to see that Oberst\'s songwriting has matured on the new disc, but it does little to help the just plain boring and/or generic songs that litter the CD. Too often it felt like the songs were running into one another without a hook or an identity of their own, as Connor used his familiar ploy of thinking his lyrics and vocals alone can carry his songs. Just about the time I was going to write this disc off I came across "Middleman." This sweeping violin filled beauty of a track, and the best tune ever composed by Oberst, sits in the middle of Cassadaga almost rudely out of place among the shallow songs that are around it. With a vibrant mysterious vocal and a graceful, yet steady groundwork of guitar and violin, the song stretches out over a moving 5 minutes, ending in a ramble of spoken word that fits nicely amongst the other array of sounds. "Middleman" along with "If The Brakeman Turns My Way" set the gold standard of what Oberst can do when he applies his effective songwriting skills. Sadly, they\'re not applied nearly enough.
After listening through Cassadaga a second time, I found myself losing interest in the album itself, and found my hand uncontrollably reaching for the little decoder so that I could continue deciphering the foreign codes from the cover artwork. Call me childish, immature or easily amused; I don\'t care, but I do stand firm in the belief that this could be the coolest album artwork ever. But, for those of you who aren\'t already big Connor Oberst fans or don\'t get as enthralled with decoding things as I do, then I wouldn\'t even bother making the trip to Cassadaga.
"Cassadaga" is on sale April 10, 2007 from Saddle Creek.
