Bright Eyes’ new album is a sound and word collage: confessional yet opaque, intimate yet anthemic — dense and dizzying and dark, yet catchy and engaging.
“Five Dice, All Threes,” which will be released Friday, is the trio’s first album of new songs since 2020. Frontman Conor Oberst’s familiar, distinctive punk-folk tremolo serves as the aural and spiritual anchor.
“I hate the protest singer staring at me in the mirror,” he sings on “Hate.”
Oberst is good at his job, though, as are his bandmates. Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott provide inventive accompaniment on instruments ranging from banjo and pedal steel to synthesizer and celeste. Electric guitars drenched in pedal effects are prominent in the lo-fi but intricate sonic patchwork, as is movie dialogue and a dice game.
Oberst had a hand in all the compositions, with help from Walcott and Alex Levine of the So So Glos. They draw from punk, power pop and classic rock, with sprinkles of jazz and hip-hop. It's an appropriately expansive setting for discourses on discontent, disillusion and death.
The album is not as relentlessly heavy as that sounds. The first song sports a whistling introduction worthy of Disney, and some of Oberst’s observations are similarly playful.
“You shouldn’t place bets on the New York Mets,” he sings on “Bells and Whistles.” Grim contemplations about mortality on “The Time I Have Left” are leavened by an ironic singalong verse that goes, “Sha la la la la la,” although a vocal contribution from the National’s Matt Berninger's baritone ensures the mood doesn’t get too bright.
The tunnel at the end of the light is a recurring topic. Cat Power’s ethereal backing vocals distinguish “All Threes,” which laments the toll of time, as does “Tiny Suicides,” which ends with sobbing. On the final song, “Tin Soldier Boy,” Walcott’s trumpet serenades Oberst’s repeated reminder that our days are numbered. Point taken.
Other subject matter includes Bud Light beer and the Bible, blown speakers and used amplifiers, cracks in the heart, bad dreams, artificial intelligence, aging and the weather.
“Hot in LA tonight,” Oberst sings on “Real Feel 105°,” seemingly referencing last week. He’s a town crier with the latest news, striving to make sense of it all.
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Steven Wine, The Associated Press