When Pitchfork last saw Connor Oberst, he was wailing through Letting Off the Happiness, an album that asked a lot of questions and never answered any of them. For example, our neighbors are still wondering what that bizarre, strangled moan was. And the Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano is still wondering who made off with his vocal chords. I, of course, am wondering how anybody could possibly have so much to worry about at the age of 19. Actually, now that I think of it, Bill Gates was 19 when he made his first million (probably). And in that respect, you could say Oberst is the Bill Gates of mid-western adolescent rage-- he's got way more than any of us will ever need.
Now, somebody once said that money can buy a certain amount of happiness, but after that, all it can get is more money. Ditto to Midwestern adolescent rage, if you substitute "punk rock" for happiness. There exists a threshold for yelling and screaming about how much stuff sucks, and crossing that threshold cam only make your music suck, too. Thankfully, Bright Eyes doesn't cross that line. Oh, but he's toeing it! Those of us who don't spend our days sitting in our bedrooms counting spiders may find the occasional lyric here cringe-inducing.
But for the most part, Bright Eyes writes songs that are unlike most other peoples' songs. Despite the aforementioned similarity to early Violent Femmes, and the annoying fact that this EP's best song ("A Perfect Sonnet") pretty much mimics Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train," the five tracks here are pretty unique. Oberst's death-obsessed lyrics may be tough to swallow now and then, but when they hit their mark, they're undeniable.
The instrumentation on Every Day, Every Night is varied and accomplished, and flaunts the same raw production values that made Elliott Smith's Either/Or sound both graceful and believable. It also doesn't hurt that Oberst's voice is left a little lower in the mix. To supplement the acoustic guitar, Bright Eyes draws sounds from an array of sources, from backwards drums to Chinese language tapes. And somehow, the various bits never seem gratuitous or disingenuous.
What seems most important about these songs, though, is that they never really become self-indulgent. As more and more schmoes out there scrape up a couple of bucks to buy guitars and four-tracks, it's becoming increasingly important to set some standards. (Hey, no one wants to wade through EPs from every third person in America.) The ongoing democratization of music could be either a miracle or a disaster. It's just good to know that there are people like Connor Oberst out there raising the bar.
