Lifted or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground

It’s the voice. Conor Oberst, the 21-year-old Omaha native who records under the name Bright Eyes, has a quivering voice that seems to bristle with some sort of deep, cosmic hurt—one that makes his songs sound as much like therapy sessions as they do anything else. There’s a chance it’s just an affectation, but it doesn’t sound that way on his latest record. The opener (“The Big Picture”) is a quietly intense strummer filled with Dylanesque zingers (“Don’t go blaming your knowledge on some fruit you ate”) that sounds like it was recorded in a moving car. Elsewhere, Oberst enlists a gaggle of musician friends, constructing spare folk-pop laments (“Waste of Paint”), twangy campfire shuffles (“Make War”), and ambitious, orchestra-led waltzes (“False Advertising”) as vehicles for his doubt and self-loathing. Believe it or not though, the consistently melodic tunes on Lifted… are actually pretty upbeat compared to the uncomfortably naked confessionals that adorned the first two Bright Eyes albums. Apparently, his musical therapy is working.