Bright Eyes | The People’s Key Review

Bright Eyes is set to release their tenth and reportedly final album called The People’s Key.  Bright Eyes front man Conor Oberst has been splitting his time lately between Bright Eyes and Monsters of Folk. Both bands have a similar style to them with their folk inspired melodies with a slightly modern twist. A little synth here and there is always a useful commodity when trying to maintain the “indie” in your band’s description these days.  As for The People’s Key, Oberst has put together one of the more interesting albums to be released, in this still very new year.

The album begins with the track Firewall which at first is a spoken word discourse on reptile aliens in Sumerian tablets. You know the ones; they interbred with humans, lived in the Garden of Eden and could shape shift, yeah those ones.  Well, after this profoundly entertaining introduction, which included many different elements including Hitler, the direction the universe spins, and of course nature of love, the song begins. Firewall goes from a crazy person rant to a slow burn rock number. It always hints at that moment when the bottom would just drop out in the song but Firewall is a big tease and never really gives it up, in a good way.  The album as a whole has many memorable lyrics and has a rather eclectic sense about it; with synth portions mixed with folksy instrumentals make this album great.  

Intermittently, the wild ramblings of same man who spoke of the reptile aliens pop in at the end of tracks throughout this album. They are often broken thoughts peppered with grandiose ideas of love and harmony, vibrations that universally recognizable. As a final act for Bright Eyes these spoken portions of the album are perhaps meant to be a reflection of what music is without a tune. Maybe the kinship between a mad man and a musician is measured in how well one can play an instrument.

The People’s Key is one of the best new albums to come out so far this year. And who knows maybe it will bring to light the reptile alien agenda once and for all.

The People’s Key due out February 15^th.