Bright Eyes: CASSADAGA

I really hate to be one of those people who drops the “New Bob Dylan” title on people who aren’t really going to be all that great in the future. However, I’ve found myself a loophole with Connor Oberst, singer/songwriter for the now incredibly popular indie/folk/country band Bright Eyes: They’ve been around for quite a while, and they’ve been continuously writing great songs. And Oberst’s songwriting streak hasn’t yet been stopped on Cassadaga, his most recent title.

It starts with a field recording with a clairvoyant who says, “Cassadaga, Oh yeah, that’s where you’ll find us, yeah and they’ve got those in Arizona too. Yeah. I know there’s wonderful grounds that have boards and everything that you might need where youíre going to. And then go to Nevada. And then California, and then come south. And go back through Arizona and then through Texas, you know what I’m saying?”

And during that a symphony is playing tense notes, building up until finally the sound of an acoustic guitar, playing tweaked notes just sharp of what you’re expecting to hear. Oberst’s juvenile voice sings of the ways of the world, with those damn lyrics he’s so good at writing. “To the counter-culture copyright/get your revolution at a lower price/or make believe and throw the fight, play dead.”

Something youíll notice throughout the album is how religiously anti-religious it is. In “Four Winds” Oberst sings “And when Great Satanís gone!/ The Whore of Babylon!” and later, “The Bible’s blind, the Torah’s deaf, the Koran is Mute/If You burned them all together you’d get close to the truth” and on “Hot Knives” he makes a reference to a Jesus on a crucifix above a bed, “Hanging like a common criminal.”

But another thing you’ll notice is how little you’ll suddenly care. If I heard those lyrics places in several different band’s songs, I would be appalled. And I’m not even religious. But with the musical context they’re put in it doesn’t really seem to bother you. The gleeful fiddle in “Four Winds” makes you completely forget about how Oberst is calling Satan great, where as in all death metal songs where it mentions the coming of Satan and how great that’ll be because there’ll be blood everywhere, I just can’t stand it. The repetitive “riffs” and the fact that you canít distinguish an A note from a G note in death metal songs is also unsettling. In “Hot Knives” the epic drums the pop in right after the mention of Jesus’s “criminal appearance” make you completely forget about that little bit of blasphemy and make you say, “Wow, that’s a great drum beat!” (At least, it made me say that).

Now, besides the anti-religious lyrics, and the incredibly poetic ones as well, what Connor Oberst is really good at is choruses (or is it chori?). For example, in “When the Brakeman Turns My Way” the organs make you ready to live some more, make you feel like you just won the lottery. And in “Classic Cars,” the bright piano builds up like a song by The Band. Actually, “Classic Cars” is probably the best song by The Band that The Band never got around to writing. It’s like an indie version of “The Weight.”

You step out of Cassadaga like you too have gone to “Nevada. And then California, and then come southÖ. back through Arizona and then through Texas.” At the end of Cassadaga, you’ve been to Cassadaga, that place with “great grounds and boards and everything that you need where youíll be going.” Hell, you’ve gone through an entire Divine intervention!

Key Tracks: Four Winds, Classic Cars, When the Brakeman Turns My Way

Bright Eyes : No One Would Riot For Less

Review by Evan Greenwald