Credit: Found On Internet

Every time there’s a new record from Conor Oberst, lynchpin of Nebraska-based folk-experimentalists Bright Eyes, you wonder what you’re going to get – is it going to be that floaty folk-esque stuff that was inevitably your first ever taste of Bright Eyes, or is he going to petulant and give you something….difficult.

Thankfully, “Cassadaga” is much more of the former than the latter. While I imagine it must Oberst at the endless comparisons of his vocals to Dylan’s, it’s with good reason. The echo of the world’s most famous singer-songwriter is still there, especially on album opener “Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed”, but without the sickly edge of Starbucks-only releases that the fallen folk legend has these days.

“Soul Singer In A Session Band” sounds like The Pogues would’ve if Shane MacGowan had grown up with regular dental visits, rather than whiskey breakfasts and cigarette lunches. Stick this album on random, and whichever track it flicks to will give you a slice of Avant-Garde Americana, but not in a nostalgic or self-deluding self-satisfied way. It never quite reaches the peaks reaches by Arcade Fire (who in many ways are arguably Bright Eyes’ closest contemporaries) but neither does it feel quite so at arms-length as the Canadian conglomerate do at times.

Much has been made of the bizarre album artwork that you need the enclosed ‘decoder’ to view – I guess it’s one kind of incentive to make people buy, rather than download – but that’s not what this record should be remembered for – this is the record where Oberst stopped acting-up for his own reasons and let something far more invasive out – an album that is engagingly listenable (albeit not in a tearing-the-world-asunder manner). You could do a lot worse if you’re looking for an album to welcome the early summer in with.

“Cassadaga” is out on April 9^th on Polydor Records.