The album is much more filed down from the nearly cinematic sounds it’s predecessor, Lifted or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground contained. Instead, Wide Awake offers less larger scaled percussions and more strings and the yearning pedal steel adds quite a reflective tone on songs like Another Travelin’ Song and Old Soul Song (For the New World Order). It shouldn’t be a surprise that this album is also very literate. Besides being drunk and dirty haired, Oberst is an extremely savvy lyricist. On Train Under Water he almost whispers... 

You were born inside of a raindrop
And I watched you falling to your death.
And the sun, she could not save you. 
She had fallen down too, 
now the streets are went.

Having been able to tie together literacy, melancholy vocals, and primarily folk instruments, Wide Awake could put good ole’ country farm boys, pale emo kids, and English professors all under one roof for a show. As mellow and wistful as most of this album sounds, Conor still manages to f*ck things up at it’s conclusion on Road To Joy by declaring just that, “Let’s fuck it up boys. Make some noise.” At which time, an enlisted army of an organ, trumpet, bass, two guitars, drums, and a 12-stringed guitar completely and utterly f*ck up the remaining 50 seconds of I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning. 

www.saddle-creek.com/bands/brighteyes

Brad Detherage