Four Winds EP

BRIGHT EYESFOUR WINDS

Thirty seconds into Bright Eyes’ latest EP, Four Winds, and I found myself in my living room, digging through my CDs in search of an album I first heard when I was 20-years-old. It was 2000 and I was still smiling fairly often despite listening to a murky album called Fevers and Mirrors by some kid named Conor Oberst that looked like he needed a babysitter. Within the next few months the term “emo” spread like sick wildfire and said kid - who I soon learned happened to be almost exactly my age - would sure enough be the poster boy for the transitory emo genre, a wretched pothole of a “genre” I personally discarded altogether, Bright Eyes’ supposed involvement aside.

Thirty seconds into my homesick spin through Fevers and I remembered the day I sought out and bought Bright Eyes’ third proper LP, Lifted, it was surely the only copy in town on release day and I had it. I also happened to have a new car stereo that day, and surely some sort of new, needed heartache pending. I drove and I drove and I drove, listening all along to what became - along with Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker - a pivotal album during my vulnerable lovesick years. Within weeks my network of music friends (and pretty much the rest of the audiophile world I’d imagine) were at the very least aware of Oberst - I, for one, had become somewhat besotted. After a few nostalgic spins through Lifted it all came back to me. Despite eventually being written off as “emo” by the too-cool-for-school crowd I‘m usually (and shamefully) in the front line of, I’d let myself fall for an album by a kid who’d been called both the “Next Dylan” and the “King of Crybaby” by opposing camps. Listening back to Lifted in 2007, I’m very glad I let myself fall.

But none of this falling- or emo-speak matters a whole lot anymore. The point is, Four Winds made me realize how much I really do - despite pseudo-city-slicker trends - love Oberst’s music (specifically the lifetime favorite Lifted), including his latest offering, Four Winds. Similar to a handful of tracks on Lifted (“Make War” and “Let‘s Not S*** Ourselves,” specifically ) and pretty much the whole of 2005’s I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning, Four Winds is a twangy, thoughtfully-written collection of songs, sturdy and steady, that will prove their worth as they age like wine while “emo” wilts like The Alarm’s catalog.

Known as much for his generosity and artistic reliability as he is for his supposed good looks, Oberst has made a habit of previewing each of his albums with a forerunner EP, usually with two or three non-album songs and the forthcoming album’s lead single. Four Winds takes this tradition to new heights, offering not just the obligatory title track, but an additional five tracks, two of which (“Reinvent the Wheel” and “Stray Dog Freedom”) are some of his most rewarding work to date. With each release Oberst seems less interested in his once art-splattered approach and more concerned with making timeless, sturdy music that will no doubt be covered along with Elliott Smith in the coming decades by kids just now learning guitar.

Speaking of Smith, the aforementioned “Reinvent the Wheel” has to be about Portland’s favorite late crooner (or possibly even about Oberst himself). It’s a heartbreakingly buoyant ode to a much-missed artist and, given it’s high quality, may have been better saved for Oberst’s upcoming long labored studio album, Cassadaga. “I’ll try to breathe in meaning / dig through every grasp of air / ‘cause I know you did the same thing for as long as you could bear / I guess everything just circles round to here it was before / so I hope I see you soon in some other form” sings Oberst on a song that features Mike Mogis, Janet Weiss, Rachel Yamagata and M. Ward.

For a few weeks in 2002 I found myself up late at night, not willing to go to bed until Lifted’s last second played. While Four Winds doesn’t quite match that level of fixation-evoking euphoria, it is his best precursor EP to date. Let’s hope that means Cassadaga will bring on plenty of sleepless nights of its own.  8.5/10

Written by G. William Locke