Multilayered Melancholy From Conor Oberst
UPSIDE DOWN MOUNTAIN by Conor Oberst
--review by Tzarathustra-- Conor Oberst and I had a stable relationship where he released Bright Eyes albums that sounded like they were scraped off the bottom of some indie kid's journal, and in return I ignored him.
But around 2008 he took a sharp left turn and emerged with a new sound that drifted back toward the sunny Laurel Canyon hippie scene circa 1968, and it worked surprisingly well. I got more mileage than I would have thought possible out of his first self-titled album, and his brand new release keeps that breezy, loose feel.
Upside-Down Mountain takes the Laurel Canyon influence and adds a little more studio polish to it, but it's studio polish from Todd Rundgren's early 70s supply, so it comes off as lush rather than brittle and overmanaged. The recording quality is sterling, and it lends a nice intimacy to even the most widescreen songs on the album.
The moments that pull back to just acoustic guitar and voice are just impossibly clear and warm on good speakers. You can hear clothing rustle and tiny breaths between lines.
The songs themselves fall along similar lines as his earlier self-titled record, with some wordy storytelling mixed with Oberst's wry existentialist musings. There's always a little bitterness in even the sweetest melodies here, but now the thunder serves to make the sunshine a little more real.
He and the Mystic Valley Band seem equally comfortable pulling out the distortion pedals as they are with the barefoot acoustic numbers, but somehow neither seem out of place on the album; Oberst has become a confident enough composer to venture out towards both sides of the sound without losing sight of where he's headed next.
This is a record with a timely release date, because it's destined to soundtrack countless summer evenings. Grab your headphones and some lemonade and drift off on the back porch.
If you just want to check out a song or two, I recommend starting with Zigzagging Toward the Light. It's got a little bit of everything this album has to offer, a nice shambling verse that opens out into a satisfying chorus, some inexplicable sounds and textures, and it eventually builds up to a rewarding burst of guitar noise.
