BRIGHT EYES
Lua
Saddle Creek
BRIGHT EYES
Take It Easy (Love Nothing)
Saddle Creek
· When your mom says she loves you and your siblings equally, she's lying.
In a preview of his twin same-day Use Your Illusion-style albums set to christen and perhaps even revolutionize 2005 (the folkier I'm Wide Awake It's Morning and the rocking Digital Ash in a Digital Urn), Conor Oberst's double barrel Lua and Take It Easy (Love Nothing) EPs arrived with a bit of a shock. Released the same week as major singles from the likes of Nelly and Jay-Z, they came out on top – Billboard and Pitchfork writers equally figuring Bright Eyes's placement at both 1 and 2 on the singles chart as some sort of sick joke.
As a record, Lua wins. Built behind the solo acoustic title lament, proving just how much Oberst can do with the slightest of means, this folkier side of Bright Eyes's personality simply grows stronger. "True Blue" and "I Woke Up With This Song in My Head This Morning" give more than just meagre hope. I'm Wide Awake It's Morning could very well best Bright Eyes's most shining moment, the bigger than Jesus(esque) Lifted. Take It Easy (Love Nothing), on the other hand, is almost heartless – a catchy chorus without a verse, shuffling over an army of drum machines. Backed by a cover of tourmate and pal Simon Joyner's "Burn Rubber" (re-imagined as pedal-steel-dipped synth pop, a combo that almost works), it's a far lesser sibling.
Where, in the past, Oberst filed off his "louder" material to his Desaparecidos side-project (so those of us who don't much like it when he gets all riled up like that wouldn't get confused), now it's all under the same umbrella. As in most families, it's not like it's ever spoken, but hey, honestly, your parents really do like one child best. The other kids are just kept around because they share the same last name and now, so it goes with Bright Eyes.
LUA 4/5
TAKE IT EASY (LOVE NOTHING) 2/5
MARK HAMILTON
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