Bright Eyes
Every Day and Every Night EP
[Saddle Creek]
Rating: 7.2
When Pitchfork last saw Connor Oberst, he was wailing through Letting Off the
Happiness, an album that asked a lot of questions and never answered any of
them. For example, our neighbors are still wondering what that bizarre, strangled
moan was. And the Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano is still wondering who made off
with his vocal chords. I, of course, am wondering how anybody could possibly
have so much to worry about at the age of 19. Actually, now that I think of it,
Bill Gates was 19 when he made his first million (probably). And in that respect,
you could say Oberst is the Bill Gates of mid-western adolescent rage-- he's got
way more than any of us will ever need.
Now, somebody once said that money can buy a certain amount of happiness, but after
that, all it can get is more money. Ditto to Midwestern adolescent rage, if you
substitute "punk rock" for happiness. There exists a threshold for yelling and
screaming about how much stuff sucks, and crossing that threshold cam only make
your music suck, too. Thankfully, Bright Eyes doesn't cross that line. Oh, but
he's toeing it! Those of us who don't spend our days sitting in our bedrooms
counting spiders may find the occasional lyric here cringe-inducing.
But for the most part, Bright Eyes writes songs that are unlike most other peoples'
songs. Despite the aforementioned similarity to early Violent Femmes, and the
annoying fact that this EP's best song ("A Perfect Sonnet") pretty much mimics
Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train," the five tracks here are pretty unique. Oberst's
death-obsessed lyrics may be tough to swallow now and then, but when they hit their
mark, they're undeniable.
The instrumentation on Every Day, Every Night is varied and accomplished, and
flaunts the same raw production values that made Elliott Smith's Either/Or
sound both graceful and believable. It also doesn't hurt that Oberst's voice is
left a little lower in the mix. To supplement the acoustic guitar, Bright Eyes
draws sounds from an array of sources, from backwards drums to Chinese language
tapes. And somehow, the various bits never seem gratuitous or disingenuous.
What seems most important about these songs, though, is that they never really
become self-indulgent. As more and more schmoes out there scrape up a couple of
bucks to buy guitars and four-tracks, it's becoming increasingly important to set
some standards. (Hey, no one wants to wade through EPs from every third person in
America.) The ongoing democratization of music could be either a miracle or a
disaster. It's just good to know that there are people like Connor Oberst out
there raising the bar.
-Zach Hooker