Bright Eyes, and The Faint

Now that the pale-skinned, fragile-voiced young singer-songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska, has been put on a pedestal with Bob Dylan after 10 years of quietly releasing records as an indie Boy Wonder, it feels like we know everything there is to know about Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst. Media hype is a...

By Michele Laudig

June 2, 2005

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Now that the pale-skinned, fragile-voiced young singer-songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska, has been put on a pedestal with Bob Dylan after 10 years of quietly releasing records as an indie Boy Wonder, it feels like we know everything there is to know about Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst. Media hype is a bitch, and media backlash is even worse. But the thing we haven't heard enough about is Oberst's album Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. Released at the same time as the much more critically acclaimed (and traditional-sounding) I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, it was actually the ballsier and, dare we say, better album of the pair. Rich with keyboard and programmed samples, Digital Ash was a counterintuitive experiment from a kid who could've just as easily called it a day after finishing his more predictably earthy material. And now he's touring with his electro brethren The Faint, who'll not only give their own high-adrenaline stage and video show, but will also join Oberst for a set of the synth-heavy grooves that weren't performed on his last tour. Believe it or not, there's still something new about Bright Eyes.

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