Fan Website: www.thestoryinthesoil.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/brighteyes
Mini-site: Cassadaga

Once tagged "rock's boy genius" by the music press, Conor Oberst turned 27 on February 15th and even without that in mind it's hard to listen to Cassadaga without hearing a newfound sophistication to the Bright Eyes sound. Producer, multi-instrumentalist and permanent band member Mike Mogis has crafted a swirling, euphonious record, at times bursting with bombastic confidence and country swagger, and at others loose-limbed and mesmeric. Trumpet and piano player Nate Walcott, a Bright Eyes player since 2003 and now the third permanent member, is responsible for the cinematic string arrangements.

Other than a handful of live appearances and the release of a collection of B-sides & rarities, Bright Eyes kept mostly out of sight in 2006 after the busy 2005 which saw the simultaneous release of the sister albums Digital Ash In A Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. Should you have looked for them you'd have found them tucked away in various studios around the country. Recording for the first time outside of the Lincoln, NE studio belonging to Mogis, the Bright Eyes cast of players were busy in studios in Portland, OR, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. The result is the band's most confident work so far, an album so full of soaring strings and female harmonies that it feels almost buoyant in comparison to previous releases. While many latched onto the smattering of political commentary in 2005's I'm Wide Awake..., Cassadaga is less blunt in its depiction of youthful exasperation in the Bush era. References to Hurricane Katrina, holy wars and polar ice-caps may crop up, but they're buried deep amongst the ruminations on life, love, history, death and the afterlife.

If I’m Wide Awake... was "the New York City album", then Cassadaga is "the America album", in which Oberst diaries his travels around the country and articulates his sense of history in the landscape. In first single "Four Winds" he is "off to old Dakota where genocide sleeps/in the Black Hills, the Badlands, the calloused East/I buried my ballast, I made my peace." Cassadaga itself crops up in the same song. The town, a community for psychics in central Florida, is visited in order to "commune with the dead". This wandering spirit is crystalized in "I Must Belong Somewhere" a song which was already a staple of live shows by the end of the 2005. "Hot Knives" is particularly spirited, bringing to mind the true energy of a Bright Eyes show. Likewise, "Soul Singer In A Session Band" - a rousing paean to an oxymoronic profession - enlists all of the elements which make the Bright Eyes live band such a euphoric experience. "Make A Plan To Plan To Love Me" is Bright Eyes at their most playful; a straight-up love song, replete with girl group vocals and Burt Bacharach strings. Oberst, the fumbling guitarist whose impassioned prose tumbles out under stark stage spotlights, is still recognizable in every track, but the songs are rich with elaborate production, cinema-sized orchestration and, at times, sprawling, almost psychedelic, atmospherics.

The line up of Bright Eyes players includes Andy LeMaster (Now It's Overhead), Ben Kweller, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Janet Weiss (ex-Sleater Kinney), Jason Boesel (Rilo Kiley), John McEntire (Tortoise) M.Ward, Maria Taylor and Rachael Yamagata.

 What people are saying about Cassadaga:
“…Cassadaga is fully-formed, a considered synthesis of Oberst’s Lifted-era bands with the country tendencies that have always undergirded his Middle American vocals. Oberst’s prog and jam-band tendencies are both subsumed by a sensibility that’s Americana in a winning, all-embracing sense. 4 stars.” – Rolling Stone

“Weaving from romantic sagas to doomsday prophecies, Oberst delivers his most mature and connected work to date. His sharply written heartland vignettes are set to graceful melodies and swaddled in lush orchestration and layers of breezy acoustic instrumentation…prospects for the music’s creator look bright indeed. “ – USA Today

“..Oberst’s country-ish genre studies have deepened with a very adult loneliness…4 stars.” - Spin

“There’s no doubt Conor Oberst is one of the best and most prolific songwriters of his generation.” – Bust

“Since sprouting up from the beige plains of the Omaha underground some ten years ago now, Bright Eyes has become one of the most prolific - and polarizing - figures in independent music.” – CMJ

“…[Cassadaga] represents a sensible evolution for those who have been on the Oberst train from its early days.” – The Washington Post

“…A collection of sounds, moods and shadowy stories that, side-by-side feel
perfectly at home.” -Paste

“A mesmerizing collection of intensely tranquil ballads, front porch shanties, and melodic lyricism.” – IGN.com

“On Cassadaga Oberst seems to have solved the split personality problem by layering all of it — the optimistic strings and the gritty, impassioned vocals — together on track after spine-tingling track.” – Rolling Stone.com

“…The lyrics are frequently brilliant.” – Riverfront Times