As a Bright Eyes fan, which of course means a Conor Oberst fan, I like pretty much anything he gets up to. This young man has a way with lyrics that grabs my heart and works my brain. That he also has a conscience makes him even more admirable.
For his second post-Bright Eyes album, Outer South, Oberst has put together the Mystic Valley Band, a collection of five other musos, some of whom have played with him on other incarnations. This time, however, he had shared around some of the songwriting and singing. Drummer Jason Boesel and guitarists Taylor Hollingsworth and Nik Freitas each contribute and sing two songs; Conor Oberst sings the other ten. In another setting, the non-Oberst songs would mostly fade out of sight, but on Outer South they all make a meaningful, varied contribution. And this band rocks, in a very American, country-inflected style, like no Bright Eyes grouping ever did. It’s a passionate, sophisticated, glorious album, a whole rather than its parts. If this isn’t the year’s standout rock release, what on earth could beat it?
Standout tracks include: the ranting, political ‘Roosevelt Room,’ sounding like nothing other than a 60s jam; ‘White Shoes,’ an eerie Conor paean to love; the jaunty ‘Cabbage Town’; ‘Slowly,’ an upbeat song full of guitars and organ; and Freitas’s ode to existential angst, ‘Big Black Nothing.’