Bright Eyes - Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was (Review)
Bright Eyes - Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was (Review)
9/1/20
Conor Oberst has been making music since he was only thirteen years old. Though, if you compare that said first release to his band Bright Eyes' notorious magnum opus "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning", you can see that his music has varied in quality overtime. His interesting and unique indie style of songwriting can be as distastefully bland as it could be truly masterful. This band Bright Eyes has put out some bad and some amazing releases throughout the past, and here is why this latest release stands among the bands greatest.
Bright Eyes' latest album "Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was" is a beautiful piece of indie folk-rock that released about a week-and-a-half ago, and it's hard to have enough of it. The album instantly starts you off with a pretty introduction over a sample of people taking throughout most of the song. This same staple can be found at the beginning of many of their other albums. Instead, in this album, the first song never breaks into a pretty acoustic song, but there is a very pretty jazz instrumental over most of it. The rest of the album consists of many great Bright Eyes songs, and even though these songs are supposedly good, this might me many people's main problem with the album. Not the fact that the songs remain consistently good, but the fact that there isn't much variety from their other albums. Of course, no Bright Eyes album feels the same, but this one comes off more clearly as the same basic formula the band, and Oberst himself, has used for over twenty years. The best counterargument would be that, in this album, they completely nailed said formula. Every song remains interesting, and throughout every listen, it feels as though the song is consuming you and drawing you in with the intrigue of anything from a pretty or dark instrumental to exquisite songwriting.
In terms of production, mixing, and mastering, the album completely delivers. It's immensely difficult to remember a moment I wasn't impressed, though it's just as difficult to remember a moment where I actually thought about it before this review. Nearly every song from start to finish draws you in and holds you through its duration, and many times even further. It was hard to remember the distinctions between many of these songs, because I was so immersed within this world the band put together. This is probably best described in the last three tracks in which I figured they might all be the same song. Obviously there were instrumental and lyrical distinctions, but everything flowed within itself so nicely. The albums lyrics would be the one place unmentioned that I may not like. The themes feel very consistent, which is nice in this case, but sometimes they can feel too consistent. The album, like all Bright Eyes albums, has a very depressing tone to it. This is set by not only the production, but also the lyrical content and themes. Within these, you see many recurring mentions, particularly of "a war" or "the war". Although, every song that mentions these things makes me want to revisit each song and discover what they all mean. Overall, the lyrics can be a blessing and a slight curse, but can stand out when everything else is a blessing.
In conclusion, this album is great. It's hard to say if it was worth a nine year wait, but good or bad, we still had Oberst's solo efforts to carry us through. There are many good things to be said about the album, but the best is certainly its ability to immerse its listener through every in and out it has to offer. This style of music that Bright Eyes is known for is very subjective and certainly not for everyone. So if you are a fan of depressing indie, slower folk, pretty and dark lyrics, or a casual listening experience, this is definitely recommended. My favorite track is "To Death's Heart (In Three Parts)". It's instrumentation is very pretty, and so are its vocal melodies and lyrics. In turn, this is a great fit for the album. My least favorite track has to be "Mariana Trench". This was a very tough pick, because there isn't a single song on this album that I inherently dislike. Though, this one just happened to be the worst of the bunch for me. I didn't find it too catchy, and it's a bit hard to get into without the rest of the album supporting it, but otherwise, it's still a great song. Giving this album a 1-10 using half numbers, I give this album a 9/10 with the five-word description of: "a stream of sublime adeptness."
Image sources (in order):
Comments
Post a Comment