Bright Eyes returns with The People’s Key

In The People’s Key, the synthetic sounds once offered by the less impressive album Noise Floor seem to be sped up, as if the record was played on the wrong setting. This is complimented by mystical lyrics reminiscent of that of the Four Winds EP and Cassadaga which are aided by the influence of Rastafarianism, bringing together loose ends in an album like none other of Oberst’s album.

Some songs essential to the album are: “Firewall,” “Shell Games,” “A Machine Spiritual (In the People’s Key)” and the final track “One for You, One for Me.” The trance-inducing track “Firewall” begins the album the same way the majority of Bright Eyes albums begin, with noise and words, followed by one of the best songs on the album. The words in this instance belong to Randy Brewer, the sometimes poetic, sometimes mystic, sometimes rambling Texas musician Oberst met while spending time in the southern states. The song begins the album as its thesis, “I do my best to sleep through the caterwaul/ The classicists, the posturing avant-garde… Seen yeah seen by I and I.”

This is by far the best Bright Eyes creation, output, in circulation—a fact indebted the manner of its creation, the process— the 13 year span of discography that is Bright Eyes. It is nice to know that this segment of musical history is ending on a pleasant note.