Bright Eyes

Conor Oberst, the ambitious singer-songwriter of Bright Eyes, has just released two albums simultaneously, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. The latter is the folksier of the two distinctly different albums full of intricate lyrics and experimental sounds. On the first track, “At the Bottom of Everything,” Oberst narrates a story about a woman on her way to see her fiancé, when the airplane she’s in begins to plunge 30,000 feet. His descriptive language and easy choruses (“Into the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love we must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge”) come to life as Oberst softly explores spirituality and searches for his identity. Emmylou Harris contributes her vocal talent to the winding ballad “We Are Nowhere and It’s Now,” and throughout the album Oberst showcases his natural ability as a storyteller. But, it’s on “Old Soul Song (For the New World Order)” where he brings out the emotion, consuming the listener with the powerfully simple chorus building intensely with every repetition, “They go wild.”