Thirty seconds into Bright Eyes' latest EP, Four Winds, and I found myself in my living room, digging through my CDs in search of an album I first heard when I was 20-years-old. It was 2000 and I was still smiling fairly often despite listening to a murky album called Fevers and Mirrors by some kid named Conor Oberst that looked like he needed a babysitter. Within the next few months the term "emo" spread like sick wildfire and said kid - who I soon learned happened to be almost exactly my age - would sure enough be the poster boy for the transitory emo genre, a wretched pothole of a "genre" I personally discarded altogether, Bright Eyes' supposed involvement aside.
Thirty seconds into my homesick spin through Fevers and I remembered the day I sought out and bought Bright Eyes' third proper LP, Lifted, it was surely the only copy in town on release day and I had it. I also happened to have a new car stereo that day, and surely some sort of new, needed heartache pending. I drove and I drove and I drove, listening all along to what became - along with Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker - a pivotal album during my vulnerable lovesick years. Within weeks my network of music friends (and pretty much the rest of the audiophile world I'd imagine) were at the very least aware of Oberst - I, for one, had become somewhat besotted. After a few nostalgic spins through Lifted it all came back to me. Despite eventually being written off as "emo" by the too-cool-for-school crowd I`m usually (and shamefully) in the front line of, I'd let myself fall for an album by a kid who'd been called both the "Next Dylan" and the "King of Crybaby" by opposing camps. Listening back to Lifted in 2007, I'm very glad I let myself fall.
But none of this falling- or emo-speak matters a whole lot anymore. The point is, Four Winds made me realize how much I really do - despite pseudo-city-slicker trends - love Oberst's music (specifically the lifetime favorite Lifted), including his latest offering, Four Winds. Similar to a handful of tracks on Lifted ("Make War" and "Let`s Not S*** Ourselves," specifically ) and pretty much the whole of 2005's I'm Wide Awake It's Morning, Four Winds is a twangy, thoughtfully-written collection of songs, sturdy and steady, that will prove their worth as they age like wine while "emo" wilts like The Alarm's catalog.
Known as much for his generosity and artistic reliability as he is for his supposed good looks, Oberst has made a habit of previewing each of his albums with a forerunner EP, usually with two or three non-album songs and the forthcoming album's lead single. Four Winds takes this tradition to new heights, offering not just the obligatory title track, but an additional five tracks, two of which ("Reinvent the Wheel" and "Stray Dog Freedom") are some of his most rewarding work to date. With each release Oberst seems less interested in his once art-splattered approach and more concerned with making timeless, sturdy music that will no doubt be covered along with Elliott Smith in the coming decades by kids just now learning guitar.
Speaking of Smith, the aforementioned "Reinvent the Wheel" has to be about Portland's favorite late crooner (or possibly even about Oberst himself). It's a heartbreakingly buoyant ode to a much-missed artist and, given it's high quality, may have been better saved for Oberst's upcoming long labored studio album, Cassadaga. "I'll try to breathe in meaning / dig through every grasp of air / `cause I know you did the same thing for as long as you could bear / I guess everything just circles round to here it was before / so I hope I see you soon in some other form" sings Oberst on a song that features Mike Mogis, Janet Weiss, Rachel Yamagata and M. Ward.
For a few weeks in 2002 I found myself up late at night, not willing to go to bed until Lifted's last second played. While Four Winds doesn't quite match that level of fixation-evoking euphoria, it is his best precursor EP to date. Let's hope that means Cassadaga will bring on plenty of sleepless nights of its own. (Greg Locke)
Great Stuff Submitted on: 2007-05-17
I love this album. Track 2 is impossible to get out of your head.
The use of the steel guitar and mandolins and kinda twangy stuff might turn some people off but I thought it was tastefully done. Think of the Wide awake album and replace the blues influence with country/bluegrass influence.
A great Ep Submitted on: 2007-03-29
This is a good ep from Connor, even though if, from what I've heard of Cassadega, it may contain some better songs than his upcoming album. But, nevertheless, this is great, and I really hope further listening will make Cassadega come alive for me. I don't know why, but, even with the folkish greatness of Four Winds, Connor has chosen to pursue the country side of his sprawling LP, Lifted or The Story Is In the Soil Put Your Ear To the Ground, rather than the beautiful folk/indie stuff from his earlier, more brilliant Fevers and Mirrors and Every Day And Every Night. He explores a little of that on Cartoon Blues and Reinvent the Wheel, but he seems to be countrifying his new stuff. Which, frankly, is a little disapointing, because, while every Bright Eyes song is a work of genious, he seems to be teetering a little too close to the country side of American radio for my liking. But, like I said, I hope it does get better than my initial perception is telling me. Buy this ep and his older stuff and hope for the best.
Time to shine on his own Submitted on: 2007-03-18
It is always scary to hear the hyperbolic comparisons journalists love to give certain musicians when they've accomplished what may be their best work to date. In Conor's case it was also a curse that he ahd to get rid of.
By sampling only the tip of what Cassadag awill be, Four winds EP gives us a new respire and new reasons to believe Bright Eyes cannot and will not be tied down to allegories of "the new this" or "the young that" that its lead singer received two years ago.
Opening track Four winds is a more upbeat song if we compared it to anything included in I'm awake it's morning", while 'Smoke without fire". duet with M. Ward takes us back to the times when he was relatively unknown and his ballads sounded like a cry more than a song/ 'Stray dog freedom" explores more the sound of southern rock with louder guitars and a more proper verse-chous-verse structure. Closing track "tourist trap" proves to be the real gem, like in most of his previous EPs.
Although a tease for those of us waiting for the complete album, this EP is worth every penny. Get it, enjoy it, and find out why Bright Eyes music makes the fans rave and passionately love them.
Blown to... Submitted on: 2007-03-17
Apparently someone turned on some vintage rock'n'roll around Conor Oberst, because the Bright Eyes' latest EP is very different from their last two albums. Instead, the "Four Winds" EP embraces an entirely different sound -- countryish, folksy, and with a dash of music-hall at times.
"Your class, your caste, your country, sect, your name or your tribe/There's people always dying trying to keep them alive," Oberst sings in the title song, tearing through a dour song over a rootsy fiddle and guitar, Mexican girl murals, long shadows, the US's existance, and crumbling society.
It's followed up by the strings and alt-rock of "Reinvent the Wheel," and the quietly folksy "Smoke Without Fire." But then it's off to rock'n'roll-land, with the sizzling slow-burn riffs of "Stray Dog Freedom," distorted country-rock of "Cartoon Blues." And he finally finishes it off with a sort of ghostly folk song, full of harmonica and tapping feet. It sounds like a ghost town's theme song.
Conor Oberst always seems to be diddling around with new sounds -- the last two Bright Eyes albums were basically in two entirely different styles. And "Four Winds" shows us a more uptempo, country-inflected side of the band, without losing the doom'n'gloom sociopolitical lyrics.
The music is pretty straightforward -- lots of acoustic guitar, some strings that can shimmer or twang, and the occasional bit of harmonica. And some rapid-clashing piano in music-hall style. And he diddles around with distortion that twists an otherwise ordinary song into a bizarroworld pop tune, with a "baby" voice echoing his.
Despite the upbeat note of most of the music, Oberst always sounds on the verge of tears. No wonder, since his songs predict America's collapse, mocks those who call him a poser, contemplates drugs and "something changing the world/like a new constitution/a thief I would have to pursue/at all times/at all costs/the truth!"
Bright Eyes has a new album coming out soon, and if this "Four Winds" EP is a representative sampling of what's ahead, it's going to be a good one. Different, but enjoyable.
Stellar EP
A great Ep