Cassadaga

Bright Eyes

Cassadaga

The 1980s saw two things hit hard: cocaine and technology. All of the sudden filmmakers and musicians who’d created brilliant, crude work for years had no idea what they were doing. Was it the drugs or all the new resources available via all the new technology? Cassadaga’s lack of clear vision, I’d imagine, would be attributed to the latter, though Conor Oberst’s recent unkempt looks imply that both factors might be at work on this, his latest official Bright Eyes album. The backing vocals on Cassadaga’s “Make a Plan to Love Me” could make any sane man (or woman) shiver and shudder, but not in an inspired way. The lyric “make a plan to love me” alone is somewhat irking. Is it a brilliantly lean lyric? Is it an embarrassingly bad lyric? It’s hard to tell, but one thing’s for sure, the way said backing vocals are approached, like many aspects of Cassadaga, are an outright misstep.

Bright Eyes’ fanbase could easily be split into two crowds: the folks who were around in the early, breaking days of Fevers and Mirrors and Lifted, and the kiddos that eventually found Lifted and inevitably fell in love upon the dual release of I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and Digital Ash In a Digital Urn. These two sets of fans will very likely have contrasting reactions to Bright Eyes’ sixth proper studio album, Cassadaga. Older fans have most certainly noticed a pleasant progression from album-to-album (Digital Ash excluded), seeing their young hero, Oberst, move closer to the organic, roots-friendly work of artists like Neil Young and Bob Dylan. The “kiddos,” on the other hand, probably aren’t quite sure what to expect, and are thus better equipped to just take Cassadaga for the hard-labored, well written album it is. As for those older folks who were around before Oberst had so much as sprouted a chin hair, well, let’s just say that they’re probably scratching their heads and reaching for their copies of Tonight‘s The Night.

On the first few spins, Cassadaga sounds more like an elaborate Jon Brion creation than it does a Mike Mogis production. The opening track, “Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed)” features - in addition to its six guest musicians (including M. Ward, Janet Weiss and Rachael Yamagata) - a full, overbearing string orchestra. Thanks to the Oberst-hallmark-loaded guts of the song, it passes and, eventually, grows just slightly beyond acceptable. Next up is the too-good-for-words “Four Winds.” Five weeks before the release of Cassadaga, Oberst released his standard precursor EP, Four Winds. Clearly, Oberst knew he had a big winner in “Four Winds,” but by making the poppy Americana song his official preview track, he led fans astray. Needless to say, Cassadaga doesn’t follow the rootsy singer/songwriter path the Four Winds EP implied would continue.

“Hot Knives” features an unidentified, subtle, stupid vocal effect, but is otherwise a good song, though - like much of Cassadaga, and lucky for fans - a grower. The aforementioned “Make a Plan to Love Me” opens with pretentious “I’m rich now” strings and dry-heave-worthy backing vocals by Yamagata. Also heave-worthy is the thought of early-20-something emo kids typing the words “make a plan to love me” on the girl or boy they adore’s Myspace page. Gage me.

There are a few huge standouts, such as the live favorite “Soul Singer in a Session Band,” which, aside from its unfitting production, lives up to the excellent live rendition Bright Eyes has been performing for at least two years now. Another standout is “Classic Cars,” which is not good just because it features Gillian Welch on backing vocals and David Rawlings on guitar, but also because, for once, Oberst is able to focus his lyrical approach for almost the entire length of a song. Again, the music is good and the production unfitting, similar to the first Traveling Wilburys album.

“Cleanse Song,” “Coat Check Dream Song” and “Lime Tree,” are - like the rest of Cassadaga - good at the gut, but unlike the rest of Cassadaga, plagued nearly to the core with bad decisions. I could go on and on about said “poor decisions,” but really, you’d have to hear it for yourself to believe it. Let’s just say that, even if Gillian Welch were to have sung backing vocals on all three songs (as opposed to the mediocre-beyond-belief Yamagata), they’d probably still be more fun to laugh at than listen to.

Songs like “I Must Belong Somewhere,” “If the Brakeman Turns My Way” and a few others make Cassadaga a must own for fans, but be forewarned: nearly every great aspect of the album is matched by a crop of cloudy decisions brought on by the bulge of resources that comes with increased fame. If you’re one of the lucky ones who snagged a complimentary copy of the “Susan Miller Rag” bonus disc, you might be better off taking that song, the five or so essential tracks from Cassadaga and the whole of the Four Winds EP and burning yourself the great Bright Eyes album that could’ve so easily been. See, technology pays off in the end. Now if we could just mix out all the wretched Yamagata vocals.  6.5/10

Written by G. William Locke