By Joshua Mellin | February 2nd, 2011
Bright Eyes’ opening tracks are everything an album starter should be. 2005′s I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning featured a nonchalant chat over tea during a plane crash. 2006′s Cassadaga began with a lost voicemail from a Florida spiritual center that developed into a crashing crescendo. On The People’s Key, Bright Eyes delivers the first great album of the last year before 2012.
Stuffed with great turns of phrase, this album continues to cement Conor Oberst as the preeminent songwriter of our generation. Perspective observations like “Come fire, come water, come karma/we’re all in transition” (on “Jejune Stars”) continue to take on a metaphysical tone.
Oberst promised a “rocker,” and definitely delivered here. After spending the last several years dabbling in several other projects, releasing two albums with the Mystic Valley Band, and putting in time withMonsters of Folk (Jim James of My Morning Jacket, M. Ward of She & Him, and fellow Bright Eyes member Mike Mogis), he is now ready to take Bright Eyes to the next level.
Mogis and Oberst’s stint in Monsters of Folk definitely had an impact on The People’s Key, the eighth studio album from Bright Eyes. Although still introspective, its not as sobbingly depressing as some of their prior work. The second track, and first single, “Shell Games” is reminiscent of “Four Winds” from Cassadaga, infused with synthesized dance beats, while “Haile Selassie” sounds like an alternate version of “Souled Out!!!”
The People’s Key is a rock-folk gem, and anyone who likes Bright Eyes will immediately enjoy it. The band will be touring through Europe in February before swinging stateside for a tour of the East Coast and Midwest, a tour that will surely expand.
Click here to stream the album for free!
