Artist: Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band
Album: Outer South
Year: 2009
Grade: 2 pretzels
Conor Oberst is taking a strange career path. The Bright Eyes frontman won over legions of fans with his dense, emotional lyricism and pained voice, being labeled the latest in a long line of “new Dylans” in the process. However, in recent years, between the duets with Emmylou Harris and his clear desire to record more country-influenced music, he’s beginning to look like the modern indie/emo equivalent of Gram Parsons. Outer South, his second solo album (and his first crediting his full band) does nothing to reverse this trend.
The biggest problem with Oberst going all Nashville on us is that he doesn’t have a good country voice. That shaky, emotionally fragile style of his tends to sound fairly wimpy when some good ol’ meat-and-potatoes country rock is crashing down behind him. Oberst sounds considerably out of place, especially on a song like “Nikorette”. While Oberst’s wordy lyrics are still present, they tend to get lost beneath such a forceful musical background. Basically, country rock doesn’t compliment Oberst’s strengths as a songwriter.
Adding to the general awkwardness of Outer South is Oberst’s willingness to shift the reins of control over to his bandmates for a number of songs. None of these songs have the lyrical weight of Oberst’s, but they also stick out to the listener, since this is supposed to be a Conor Oberst record. Artists like Dylan and Neil Young have proven that high-profile musicians can’t fade into the background and “just be one of the guys in the band.” The audience is listening for them. They don’t care about this other random dude singing instead.
The songwriting on Outer South is just generally weak. There are no real standouts and nothing really sticks with the listener after the last notes have faded away. The album is also a staggering seventy minutes long, which is far too much bland southern rock for a listener to tolerate in one sitting. Most of the songs here overstay their welcome by a good two minutes, making Outer South an album crying out for some quality editing. To those who have the patience to last through to the end of the record, the meager highlights are placed at the tail end of the album, with the ferocious “Roosevelt Room” and tender “Eagle On A Pole” showing that the Mystic Valley Band could do impressive things in the future. However, Outer South is not a strong record. There’s too much here and very little of it is good. That’s not a particularly winning combination.
The biggest problem with Oberst going all Nashville on us is that he doesn’t have a good country voice. That shaky, emotionally fragile style of his tends to sound fairly wimpy when some good ol’ meat-and-potatoes country rock is crashing down behind him. Oberst sounds considerably out of place, especially on a song like “Nikorette”. While Oberst’s wordy lyrics are still present, they tend to get lost beneath such a forceful musical background. Basically, country rock doesn’t compliment Oberst’s strengths as a songwriter.
Adding to the general awkwardness of Outer South is Oberst’s willingness to shift the reins of control over to his bandmates for a number of songs. None of these songs have the lyrical weight of Oberst’s, but they also stick out to the listener, since this is supposed to be a Conor Oberst record. Artists like Dylan and Neil Young have proven that high-profile musicians can’t fade into the background and “just be one of the guys in the band.” The audience is listening for them. They don’t care about this other random dude singing instead.
The songwriting on Outer South is just generally weak. There are no real standouts and nothing really sticks with the listener after the last notes have faded away. The album is also a staggering seventy minutes long, which is far too much bland southern rock for a listener to tolerate in one sitting. Most of the songs here overstay their welcome by a good two minutes, making Outer South an album crying out for some quality editing. To those who have the patience to last through to the end of the record, the meager highlights are placed at the tail end of the album, with the ferocious “Roosevelt Room” and tender “Eagle On A Pole” showing that the Mystic Valley Band could do impressive things in the future. However, Outer South is not a strong record. There’s too much here and very little of it is good. That’s not a particularly winning combination.
No comments:
Post a Comment