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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Cassadaga
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 91 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Saddle Creek
Release Date: 10 April 2007
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Summary
Conor Oberst & co. branch out into country and orchestral pop on their latest 13-track set, which finds them joined by guests Gillian Welch, Janet Weiss, and M. Ward.
Also By This Artist: Digital Ash In A Digital Urn I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground Motion Sickness [Live] Noise Floor (Rarities 1998-2005)
Also On The Web: Bright Eyes @ MySpace Official Artist Site Saddle Creek
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Los Angeles Times
The music doesn't always live up to the demands of the journey, but Oberst's trembling, vulnerable voice carries through to a rewarding conclusion.
Read Full Review >Filter
On Cassadaga, classic sounds are resurrected in a satisfying swirl of country, gospel, cinematic pop, and of course, electro-folk.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
More sonically and lyrically ambitious than 2005’s I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and more fully realized than the scattershot Digital Ash In A Digital Urn, Cassadaga is Oberst’s most affecting and challenging full-length to date, and proves that he’ll be a defining figure in folk music for many years to come. [#17, p.83]
PopMatters
Cassadaga is an assured and accomplished album; a classic constructed from classic elements.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
Musically, it's his richest album yet, full of Nashville twang and Branson brassiness. And lyrically, the itinerant-traveler conceit is intriguing, even though its sweeping scope lacks the almost masochistically intimate power of earlier material.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe
"Cassadaga"... delivers on the wildly unlikely promise that very young, very gifted artists can grow up without losing their balance.
Read Full Review >Spin
Oberst's countryish genre studies have deepened with a very adult loneliness. [Apr 2007, p.89]
musicOMH.com
Cassadaga is everything his fans would expect from him - mournful, moody and full of lovely melodies.
Read Full Review >The Guardian
Oberst's frequent comparisons to Bob Dylan won't suffer, but he has also conjured up some of his best tunes, especially Hot Knives and If the Brakeman Turns My Way, with themes of alienation and self-medication.
Read Full Review >Sputnikmusic
Fantastic lyrical concepts, an improved musicianship and the addition of an orchestra make Cassadaga easily the most enjoyable Bright Eyes album as a whole.
Read Full Review >Prefix Magazine
Cassadaga represents a next phase, one that will prove enduring even as the kids latch onto their next rock 'n' roll savior.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
It's about 15 minutes and three songs too long. [May 2007, p.117]
Slant Magazine
One hopes that the next LP will pack a little less filler, and Bright Eyes will drop a 40-minute work as tight as their best four-minute works.
Read Full Review >Mojo
Cassadaga is an album to warm souls, rally minds and break hearts in equal measure. [May 2007, p.110]
Urb
At once apocalyptic and born again. [May 2007, p.96]
Rolling Stone
Musically, Cassadaga is fully formed, a considered synthesis of the catch-as-catch-can expansiveness of Oberst's Lifted-era bands with the country tendencies that have always undergirded his Middle American vocals.
Read Full Review >New Musical Express
This is about as close to a bid for mainstream acceptance as you're going to get from Bright Eyes.
Read Full Review >Dot Music
Heartfelt, honest and compelling, "Cassadaga" is garnished with melodies so lush that Bright Eyes' ascent to the next level of recognition is absolutely assured.
Read Full Review >Alternative Press
[Cassadaga] finds Oberst cultivating a sophistication usually found in records made by people old enough to be his grandparents. [May 2007, p.150]
Uncut
Cassadaga is fulsome, epic, and swirling, by far Oberst's most sophisticated, seamless effort. [May 2007, p.89]
Blender
An ambitious, twangy and faintly psychedelic folk-rock set that still may not convince haters he isn't a twerp. [May 2007, p.102]
Paste Magazine
As ambitious as this album is, there's a surprising lack of anguish on display. [Apr 2007, p.54]
The Onion (A.V. Club)
It isn't that Cassadaga is necessarily bad, but where I'm Wide Awake was compact and graceful, the new record lumbers, belaboring Conor Oberst's anguish about the state of the world.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle
Cassadaga, while not exceptional in Oberst's canon, demonstrates a maturity that ensures his legacy beyond emo-folk.
Read Full Review >NOW Magazine
Oberst's political criticism is most effective when he's humble and straightforward, yet his overwrought poetics seem laughable, childish and blinkered when applied to world affairs.
Read Full Review >Billboard
It's a pleasant enough, if uneven work. [14 Apr 2007]
Playlouder
'Cassadaga' is much less of a draining emotional journey for both chief player and listener alike than Bright Eyes previous work.
Read Full Review >Stylus Magazine
Cassadaga falters in the same way I’m Wide Awake did: by trying to present his views as universal, it just exposes how Conor Oberst can’t handle the Truth.
Read Full Review >The New York Times
He is clearly searching for a more mature style. But the musical and rhetorical convolutions of “Cassadaga” are no substitute, yet, for the way he used to blurt things out. [9 Apr 2007]
Read Full Review >Hartford Courant
"Cassadaga" is an insular, self-referential album that strives for depth and profundity and sounds instead like a high-school poetry reading, full of rhyming-dictionary couplets and banal pronouncements about life.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 91 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Steve gave it a9:
This is an outstanding album. I hadn't heard much Bright Eyes before I got this album, so it's not to say that I am giving it a high score just because I love the members of the band. Most people seem to tout "Four Winds" as the headlining song on this album and though it is good, it pales in comparison to "If the Brakeman Turns my Way," "Cleanse Song," or "Middleman." "Four Winds" is the song that appeals to the largest group of people, which explains its long stretch of playtime on the radio. As most know, the vast majority of what is played on the radio is complete crap.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
I was never a Bright Eyes fan (respected Connor but not my thing). This album has turned me around. An instant classic. No one is making albums like this anymore.
darryl f gave it a10:
best album of this year so far
jw gave it an8:
(8.5) Coat Check Dream Song, I Must Belong Somewhere, Four Winds, and Hot Knives are the highlights. I bought the Four Winds single first, and I think in some ways that collection is stronger (overall) than what he left on the full album. Cartoon Blues and Reinvent The Wheel are especially good, I think. Take the six songs from that single, add Coat Check, Must Belong, Knives, and maybe Soul Singer... and you've got something REALLY special. With the lineup as is, Cassadaga is still a solid 8 or 9.
Andrew A gave it a6:
You can get some great singles out of here, but the whole thing is too much.
[Anonymous] gave it a6:
Alas, Conor's paling around with M Ward has got the best of him. Ward's influence is heavy and yet Conor is not Ward and thus falls a bit flat when going for that style. I feel this will go down as the being M ward's butt boy album.
Craig R. gave it a7:
A good if slightly underwhelming attempt. Lacks the subtlety of "I'm Wide awake it's morning" and the bite of "Digital Ash..." - definately a step down in quality this time around.
