Conor Oberst is back. But did he ever really go anywhere? Since January of 2005, his home-spun Midwestern outfit Bright Eyes has released a bevy of recordings from simultaneous LP’s, to live recordings, a rarities release, to this here EP, Four Winds. As a collection of B-Sides from the recording session of full-length Cassadega - set to hit record stores in April of 2007 - Four Winds is a 6-song tease of folksy blues country-bumpkin fodder. Traipsing down that familiar path, Oberst and his team of songsters - now officially Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott - traverse similar terrain: that of the lonesome country blues man, dying to find his place in the world. It is thus at this point that I must ask; is Oberst attempting to shed his stature as indie rocks commander-in-chief? Or is he merely jaded by success and his sexy New York lifestyle? For, this all-too-predictable twaddle is without heart, and is - for lack of a better word - boring. This is not the Oberst of yore, of Fevers and Mirrors, of heartfelt longing for moral imperatives and explorations of forsaken identity. No. This is risk-free self-indulgence with no soul.
~ W.T. Wallace
Buy Album from CD Universe
