It’s wild to think that Bright Eyes’ last, and eighth album, 2011’s masterful The People’s Key, was released when frontman Conor Oberst was then just 31. While still considerably younger than many of his peers that blossomed at the same time in the mid-2000s, the prodigiously talented songwriter has been cranking out confessional songs riddled with internal angst and self-doubt since his teens. But with The People’s Key, Oberst finally embraced an extroverted rockstar persona (well, for him, anyway), and an outward-looking viewpoint, pondering big metaphysical ideas about compassion in a complicated world, and humanity’s place in the wider universe. A sonically captivating, emotionally moving record, it felt like a culmination, and honestly, a celebratory farewell.
Luckily it was not a true goodbye: Here we are, three years later, and Conor Oberst is back, albeit sans the Bright Eyes moniker, with his latest, Upside Down Mountain.