Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
Outer South
Merge

3.5 Out of 5 Stars

It looks like Conor Oberst, the former Bright Eyes heart-wrencher, has finally loosened up for good. Outer South is the second album from Oberst since the ostensible dissolution of the Bright Eyes moniker, and like his eponymous debut, it works through a medium of jammy border-rock that barely resembles the precocious emo-folk that defined his past.

But unlike 2008’s Conor Oberst, his newest effort is more egalitarian, with “and the Mystic Valley Band” now accompanying “Conor Oberst” in your iTunes library. And the album’s cover art features each musician’s stoic mug while Oberst stands in the not-quite-center, unbalanced and blindfolded. Could this be some form of cryptic symbolism?

Probably not. If anything, it signifies Oberst handing the wheel over to his backing band — at least for a few miles. More than any other Oberst record, songwriting has become a communal effort. On Oberst, where the Mystic Valley Band was more of an incognito backing band, Mr. Oberst wrote all but one song. But now, the band members are writing their own, and even singing them, too. There are six songs written by someone other than Oberst, and even though the Oberst-penned and -sung tunes are often the strongest cuts here, tracks like drummer Jason Boesel’s “Difference Is Time” and “Eagle On a Pole” show off considerable songwriting talent themselves.

The constant shifting of lead singers can be distracting, but it also lends the album a pieced together, collage-type feel that contributes to the record’s air of liberation. There are no rules on Outer South. Include a synth-tinged pop song about having sex on an airbed sung by the band’s guitarist? Sure, call it “Air Matress.” How about an Oberst-only folk tune that could’ve fit right in on Bright Eyes’s 2002 effort Lifted or The Story is In the Soil? Yes sir, and name it “White Shoes” and damn all if it seems to contradict why Oberst relinquished the Bright Eyes name in the first place. The fun these guys are having can be heard all over the album, and it’s undeniably contagious.

Oberst himself has obviously matured, not only in his songwriting but vocally as well. Gone (mostly) are the irritating faux-wavers and the obvious cop-outs when he can’t quite reach a note. He’s singing confidently, still idiosyncratically, but without all the immature posturing heard on his earlier work (much like the Bob Dylan voice that emerged on Highway 61 Revisited).

As a younger lyricist, Oberst focused more on writing one or two clever lines per song than rolling out a more linear, cohesive narrative. When they hit, they hit hard. But after a while, building songs around one incisive phrase becomes clearly lazy and ineffectual. It seems Oberst has either grown out of that phase or just learned to curb it, because Outer South contains some of his most unfrilled lyrics yet. This doesn’t mean they lack the poetics of the past — there’s still beauty in the bare. Songs like “Cabbage Town” and “Air Mattress” are straightforward odes to love on the road and capture the feeling impressively.

The most allegorical song on the album, “Roosevelt Room,” is a Yeatsian vision of an America in flames. With lyrics like “And I’d like to write my congressman / But I can’t afford the stamp,” it’s the album’s only blatantly political tune. It feels mostly out of place on the record, but it’s still a hell of a protest song.

Outer South may or may not be the definitive sound of the new Conor Oberst (my money’s on not), but its definitely a worthy genre diversion from a group of talented musicians.