Cassadaga
Bright Eyes Universal/Polydor
Like the Great American Novel, there is also the Great American Album - a work that attempts to sum up the state of a nation in a dozen or so songs. Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young (despite the latter's Canadian origins) have expended the most energy singing about wars, floods and falling towers on their recent releases, but younger musicians have also been documenting these turbulent times in song. Of this lot, it is 27-year-old Conor Oberst from Nebraska who is most often acclaimed as the voice of his generation.
Prolific and poetic, Oberst has made music under the name Bright Eyes since his mid-teens, releasing a dozen or so albums along the way. He became a reluctant figurehead for political activists when he joined Springsteen's Vote for Change tour in 2004 to sing his bitter song "When the President Talks to God". On Cassadaga Oberst, though wary of partisan politics, continues to paint a bleak image of US affairs. The gloom particularly stands out on the tense acoustic ballad "No One Would Riot for Less", where he sings: "Little soldier, little insect/You know war it has no heart/It will kill you in the sunshine/Or happily in the dark".
Yet there is also a conscious attempt to look at life's bigger picture - other songs deal with themes of love and hope, drawing further Springsteen comparisons with their rollicking fiddles and holler-along choruses. "If the Brakeman Turns My Way" is a joyous, swaying number about accepting your luck of the draw. On the country-rocking "Classic Cars", the singer is given life-affirming advice by a mysterious woman.
While his country continues to struggle, the broad range of his songwriting shows Oberst at the peak of his musical powers.
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