Bright Eyes Shell Games

I'm sure there are plenty of us out there who went through solid Bright Eyes phases in high school. And I'm sure that most all of us are about done with Bright Eyes. On the few rare occasions I've returned to Conor's older work, I've enjoyed myself for a minute or two, and then quickly realized that in the ~8 years since Saddlecreek was huge, music has improved. A lot.

Naturally then, when one learns that Conor's got another album lined up -- his last was 2007's Cassadaga, which I can't say I remember -- it sparks a natural curiousity to see whether he's still stuck in the dumps, or has caught up with the rest of the music world.

The verdict? It's one of the more layered Bright Eyes songs I've heard, and the piano backed by a chorus of angels marks a striking change in sound (from my perspective, at least). Present still is Conor's vibrato voice, but newly added is an 80s-style synth (alluding, perhaps, to our the recent emergence of chillwave as a dominant genre).

With "Shell Games," Conor comes out marching to a different beat. The question then becomes whether the 10-track People's Key, which arrives February 15th, will give us a new look at a new Bright Eyes. I'm a skeptic, but this track provides a bit of optimism.