Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was

As talented as Oberst is on his own, his symbiotic relationship with the other members of Bright Eyes makes it easily Oberst’s best project and one I hope continues on for the foreseeable future.

By the time the album’s 54 minutes have drawn to a close, you feel exhausted but in the best possible way.

Unironically majestic set pieces that offer a ray of hope as this wild ride ends. [Oct 2020, p.28]

While “Down in the Weeds” may be an apt reflection of the anxiety and fury many feel today, it doesn’t require that context to connect. Prior to their hiatus, Bright Eyes had never made music with an expiration date. With a tenth album now factored in, that streak remains intact.

Down in the Weeds is still a Bright Eyes album, with its share of obsessiveness, narcissism, and angst. Many songs have their sights set on calamity, from climate disaster to Oberst’s failed marriage. And yet, there’s also a refreshing maturity, a perspective that seems a bit wiser, a bit less ready to revel in self-loathing. ... That culmination — from grief to love — is what truly makes these Bright Eyes songs feel new.

By cycling through so many varied musical styles in the pursuit of bristling self-reflection, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was offers an easy way through the endless morass of bad headlines and worse outcomes: Dance and sing.

Bright Eyes may not technically be emo, but they are transcendently expressive, beatifically melancholic. Down in the Weeds is just the statement of grounding that we need as a respite from the churning chaos around us.

At once bleak, grey and obsessed with morbidity, and lush, blooming and gorgeous, it’s great to have them back.

Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was is very complicated lyrically and also very fresh. The trio championed the moody music that college English students sat in their dorms and cried too, and Bright Eyes doesn’t leave that signature out, but they doctor up the sonics resulting in a dense return from a long hiatus.

It’s a fitting record for the global unease of the past few months, but one that’s characteristically intimate.

The resulting record is a comfortable return to the sounds, themes, and band members that have made Bright Eyes’ music special to a generation of listeners. Where the band goes from here is anyone’s guess, but Bright Eyes’ latest is a satisfying new addition to a storied career.

Down in the Weeds avoids being either a phoned-in nostalgia trip or a wildly new direction that would alienate fans. Instead it continues Bright Eyes' evolution without skipping a beat, and manages to be one of their stronger records in the process.

As with the best of Bright Eyes, there’s a bittersweet meeting of macabre words and folky tunefulness.

Smart audio trickery and intriguing atmospheres draw the listener in and, overall, it's a real beauty. [Sep 2020, p.111]

The songs on Down in the Weeds reprises the sheen and clarity of Bright Eyes’s later records, like Cassadaga and The People’s Key, and mostly eschews the rawer qualities of their early recordings. But the band also continues to pick up influences and incorporate new sounds into their foundation.

They're spinning a lonely, sad narrative on Down in the Weeds..., but in telling the story they share it with all of us, which naturally transforms it.

Almost every song here shoves interpersonal woes against societal angst in a fundamentally Bright Eyes way.

At its heart, Down in the Weeds is a wounded, hopeful take on the Los Angeles midlife-crisis record (he moved there a few years ago). It’s a topic well-suited for Oberst’s abstract cynicism, as he tackles crumbling SoCal interstates, Malibu beach disasters, and, of course, yoga.

Found sounds and out-of-context conversations are the band’s signatures. ... Sometimes it works (the sudden intrusion of bagpipes on “Persona Non Grata”); sometimes it’s all a bit too much and the songs feel excessively crowded. But many of the most powerful moments on this record are uncharacteristically straightforward.