Bright Eyes | Album Review

Story by Dylan Bliss 

| Published Feb 15, 2011

Bright Eyes, a long-time Saddle Creek project headed by Conor Oberst, originally slated their final LP, “The People’s Key”, to release today. However, thanks to StrikeGently, NPR, and a few others, most fans and interested parties alike have had a chance to give it a listen. For years, public response for Oberst’s vocals, stylings, and lyrics has been very hot and cold. On the other hand, each of his LPs from the last decade have experienced nothing but absolute critical acclaim, and have appeared on top of countless annual best-of lists.

These discrepancies have bred a mass debate among lovers of alternative music. Oberst has willingly driven this wedge with his highly intuitive lyricism, cynicism, and often optimistic views of everyday life against an apocalyptic backdrop of varied sounds. “People’s Key” hadn’t set its hooks until I had heard it on my own, and it has been a rewardingly unique and personal experience.

The entire album is peppered with seemingly crazed monologues offered by Denny Brewer, guitarist for the band Refried Icecream, and each rant about UFOs and parallel universes dances on the line between hilarious and insightful. Fans of Bright Eyes are more than used to being led through long dialogues that carry the theme of the record, and it becomes obvious that Oberst is as much having fun as he is truly expressing himself.

All the elements of his strongest efforts are present; “People’s Key” achieves accessibility without any major shifts in style or structure. Tracks like “Shell Games”, “Jejune Stars”, and “Triple Spiral” pick up the pace to drive home musings of love, childhood, and false deities. Oberst’s toned-down pseudo-ballads also make an appearance in “Ladder Song”, a reflection and love note that carries a familiar sense of futility: “Well, I know when it’s finally done. This whole life is a hallucination. You're not alone in anything. You're not alone in trying to be.”

Simple enough, if you’ve bought into Oberst’s thematics before, you undoubtedly will again.
Moreover, haters gonna hate, and the most pleasing aspect of this soon-to-be legacy is that each time around you’re left to decide its merit and/or personal significance for yourself.