Bright Eyes

Cassadaga

[4/5] It’s interesting to note that Conor Oberst is adored by both earnest emo-immersed youth and white-belt hipsters who sneer at Dashboard Confessional. Fortunately, you don’t need to be young or a lemming for the Shins to see that the latest Bright Eyes opus finds Oberst cultivating a sophistication usually found in records made by people old enough to be his grandparents. This time out, Oberst and multi-instrumentalist foils Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott have significantly raised the bar, cloaking songs in ambitious string arrangements (“Make A Plan To Love Me”) and swinging instrumentation (“Soul Singer In A Session Band”) that echo great ’70s works by Joe Cocker and Elton John. And O-boy knows how to write ’em, from erudite observations like “all your friends and sedatives mean well, but make it worse” (“If The Brakeman Turns My Way”) to casual dismissals that “I’ve made love, yeah, I’ve been fucked. So what?” (“Hot Knives”). To paraphrase Johnny Rotten, Oberst means it, maaann. (SADDLE CREEK) Jason Pettigrew