Cassadaga

7.5/10

I'm Wide Awake It's Morning was a great protest album. It's been looked at now from every angle by plenty of people, but ultimately Conor Oberst constructed a great record about anti-bush and anti-war sentiment that was reminiscent (excuse the reference) of Dylan's best work. The album soared and swooned in rambling country fashion and made its statements concisely and with a more shrewd sense of lyricism that Oberst's previous albums. Digital Ash In A Digital Urn was something different altogether but personally was the more brilliant of the two albums. The electronic quirks of Digital Ash... were suited well to his equally quirky voice and lyrics, the concept of stretching out across two albums however seemed to have hurt the effort.

Cassadaga does its best to draw all of these disparate influences and the component parts of Conor Oberst into one cohesive album and play as something bigger than the sum of its parts. Ultimately, it does an all right job of that and the songs are excellent, but whether or not its really complete as an album in terms of theme or tone is up for debate. The lyrical content is all over the usual angst ridden map of usual concerns, religion, war, and the supernatural. The references to Cassadaga, the snippets of phone conversation incorporated into "Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed)" and the interviews done prior to the release of this album about Oberst's apparent visits to mediums and mystics have provided a sort of explanation of his almost constant anguish across his musical career. He remains an almost constantly naive character relying on a community of psychics to point him in the right direction, he is something of a caricature of himself in a way that even the parodies of him on Saturday Night Live and The Onion are lacking. This becomes blatantly obvious in his music through his adroit yet obscure lyricism and his outlandish instrumentations. Regardless of all this the songs collected on this record are second to none and even outdo his own previous work.

"Four Winds" is a joyous country shuffle that calls religious imagery into view with every line, "Make A Plan To Love Me" is full on Burt Bacharach material, and sounds classy and new while recalling the past all at once. "Coat Check Dream Song" brings to mind the Cure and best materializes the influences and sounds of Digital Ash... while also incorporating an arabic vocal that sort of seems oddly compelling yet overall in the right place. Cassadaga may not be Bright Eyes' best album but it is a very good one.