Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was brings all the aspects of past Bright Eyes together at once, and then turns everything up to 11.
It’s been nine long years since Bright Eyes considered retiring the band’s moniker, effectively disbanding. This may confuse those who thought “Bright Eyes” was interchangeable with the group’s charismatic frontman Conor Oberst, but Bright Eyes is actually a trio consisting of Oberst, producer/multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis, and additional multi-instrumentalist Nate Walcott.
Some might think it’s only natural that they called it quits at the outset of the 2010s; anyone who was a teenager or young adult in the 2000s will forever associate the band’s angsty heyday with the once-dominant music term “emo.” Oberst’s lyrics definitely contained no shortage of Myspace-friendly lines that revealed his inner turmoil (see: “Lover I Don’t Have to Love”), and his warbling, pining vocals were either seen as honest and vulnerable or whiny. However, this really oversimplifies Bright Eyes, who were at heart a folk-rock group. They also often embraced country music, were known as one of the most politically outspoken indie acts of the Bush years, and even experimented with electronica a couple times.
Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was brings all these aspects of past Bright Eyes together at once, and then turns everything up to 11. Far from the band’s modest origins, this is the kind of album where a couple tracks have a full choir—and a few more have a full orchestra. The band borrowed Jon Theodore of Queens of the Stone Age (and formerly of the Mars Volta) as a drummer, while the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea plays bass on half the tracks. Seriously, just look at the personnel list on the Wikipedia page. It’s hard to overstate how big a production Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was is, but it never sounds tawdry.
For some context, the nine years between their last album, The People’s Key, and Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was have had their ups and downs for Bright Eyes’ members, particularly Oberst. He released a couple angst-free folk albums with the Mystic Valley Band before Bright Eyes’ hiatus, hinting towards a more mature Americana sound. Tellingly, the release of his chilled-out 2014 solo album Upside Down Mountain was accompanied by the Spin cover story: “Conor Oberst has cheered up.” However, this headline spoke too soon, as his stripped-down 2016 album Ruminations and its fully-fleshed out companion Salutations were full of dread and disquiet. Last year’s collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers as Better Oblivion Community Center was excellent, but not exactly cheery either. On a more personal note, Oberst’s older brother passed away in 2016, and he and his wife divorced the following year. Add the chaos of the Trump administration to the mix, and there’s no wonder why Oberst might have proposed getting the band back together in late 2017, if nothing else to return to the mindset of a simpler time.
Of course, the Bright Eyes of 2020 is much different from the Bright Eyes of the 2000s, and Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was is anything but simple. The band signed with label Dead Oceans to release the album, making it the first Bright Eyes release not on the Mogis-founded Saddle Creek Records. As Mogis himself tells it, working with a new, very encouraging label was “refreshing,” and this might explain the album’s sheer ambition and grand scale. “Dance and Sing” is the only track that contains both a full orchestra and a choir, along with a show-stealing pedal steel guitar, and it’s nothing short of beautiful. The closing “Comet Song” is just as stately and fairy tale-esque. “One and Done” is less traditional, bringing together an orchestra with Flea’s funky bass playing, an odd combination that somehow works. On the opposite end, Mogis cited “Pan and Broom” as the most extreme example of the band distilling things down on the album. The result sounds a lot like Metronomy’s mellow electronica, and Bright Eyes doesn’t quite pull it off.
Despite the grandiosity found throughout Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was, it won’t feel too unfamiliar to anyone well acquainted with Bright Eyes. The orchestration on the aforementioned tracks will remind anyone who’s listened to Cassadaga of “Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed)” and “Make a Plan to Love Me.” The catchy single “Mariana Trench” has the synthesizer foundation and pop feel of “Shell Games” from The People’s Key, and showcases the band’s dynamism. “Tilt-A-Whirl” is classic Bright Eyes folk-rock, in the same vein as I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. Going back further, the way Oberst sings on “Persona non Grata” somewhat reminds me of his cadence on “Method Acting” from 2002’s Lifted. Now, the guitar strumming has been replaced by piano and (get ready for this) BAGPIPES, a first for Bright Eyes and an instrument that complements Oberst’s uneasy tone. There are few styles on Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was that the band hasn’t attempted before, but listeners can take comfort in the album’s ability to bring all of them together without a messy result.
If you’ve only listened to a few Bright Eyes albums before, you might not have noticed the band’s fondness for vocal samples. From the child reading “Mitchell is Moving” on Fevers and Mirrors to the shamanistic ramblings throughout The People’s Key, almost every Bright Eyes release has included them, although they’ve never really been a defining feature of their music. Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was brings them to the fore, making their presence harder to overlook. The album opens with “Pageturners Rag,” named for a bar Oberst owns in Omaha, and intersperses its titular ragtime music with snippets of his ex-wife and mother talking. The dramatic midsection of “Forced Convalescence” throws in a few lines of random dialogue, much like “Approximate Sunlight” from The People’s Key. These are cryptic yet benign enough, but a few tracks on Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was have quick intro/outro recordings of Oberst that are just distracting. “Hot Car in the Sun” and “To Death’s Heart (In Three Parts)” are both are emotional high points on the album, and they’re blunted a bit by a spoken phrase like “they gouged out my eyes but I could still see.”
All of these hallmarks undeniably make Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was a work of Bright Eyes, yet a few songs resemble Oberst’s solo projects. The upbeat, relaxed feel of “Just Once in the World” coupled with its backing vocals at the chorus make it sound like an Upside Down Mountain outtake. Same goes for “Calais to Dover,” which echoes “Desert Island Questionnaire” from that album. Toning things down, “Hot Car in the Sun” is the most bare-bones track of the bunch, with barely more than a piano to accompany Oberst in the style of Ruminations. Its minimalism on an otherwise maximalist release makes it stand out, but in a good way.
While there’s no official rule that Bright Eyes is Oberst’s outlet for darker, more heartfelt music, Down in the Weeds Where the World Once Was is broadly about loss. Oberst explained that “the weeds” in the album title relate to “the minutiae of experience,” and his lyrics are full of simple statements that speak to a breadth of tragedy. On “To Death’s Heart (In Three Parts)” Oberst asks his ex-wife “What’s it like to live with me here every fucking day?” and just receives the reply “agotante, agotante, agotante” – the Spanish word for “exhausting.” While the two are stated to have an amicable relationship now, he confesses, “Didn’t have much else to do, I was dreaming of my ex-wife’s face” on “Hot Car in the Sun.” If this isn’t enough a downer, he compares his loneliness to “just a dog dying in the Chevrolet,” which explains the song’s title. “Tilt-A-Whirl” is about how his brother’s death reminds him of life’s abrupt end, and “Mariana Trench” has the line “look up at that big wave/look down at your other brother’s grave.” Even the chipper “Pageturners Rag” contains Oberst’s mother telling a story about his late brother’s old house.
There is a hopeful message underneath all this despair, one that emphasizes how life’s low points will eventually turn their course. “Dance and Sing” says that we’ve “got to keep on going like it ain’t the end,” and Oberst makes the somewhat cliche chorus of “all I can do is just dance on through, and sing” sound good. The title of the final track “Comet Song” comes from all things moving in a cycle, and closes out the album with the line “She doesn’t know yet what a comet does, you’re approaching, even as you disappear.” After all, a big part of aging is making peace, and on “Forced Convalescence” he notes how there’s “no escaping the housework” as he’s “catastrophizing” about turning 40 years old.
It is good to hear new Bright Eyes again, even if there was no shortage of Oberst-made music during the band’s hiatus years. After all, Bright Eyes is a trio of three exceptionally talented musicians, not one, who produce a sound like no other when working together. Yes, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was sticks out in the Bright Eyes discography for its long release gap, but it’s also the first of the band’s albums where almost every song can be described as “multifaceted.” There’s plenty of added flair to go around on each track, and the band’s deep back catalogue and past sonic experiments have given them plenty of room to pull inspiration from past successes. Even if it’s not entirely pioneering, you’ll be glad the band is back together, and just hope it’s not another nine years before we get to enjoy them again.
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