Album of the decade? Bright Eyes – Digital Ash in a Digital Urn

November 30, 2009 at 2:11 pm | Posted in music | 7 Comments
Tags: albums, bright eyes, conor oberst, digital ash in a digital urn, music, poll, review

Digital Ash in a Digital Urn may not be the album that so many were expecting from Bright Eyes in 2005 – it wasn’t an easy consolidation of Lifted‘s success. If its companion piece, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, was largely a whiskey-soaked folk confessional of life on the road, this was a darker beast altogether: Oberst picking through the depths of his hangover and finding little of consolation. But my, what a beautiful curveball.

It all kicks off with a string of menacing electronic groans and heavy breathing before opening track proper, ‘Gold Mine Gutted’, pits a dual set of diverging drumbeats against humming synths. It’s different to anything the band have produced before, yet somehow unmistakably Bright Eyes:

Closer ‘Easy/Lucky/Free’ also finds Oberst on melancholic, contemplative form, hicupping a broken lament on  how “I got some friends I barely see / But we’re all planning to meet / We’ll lay in bags as dead as leaves / All together for eternity.” Fantastic video for it, as well; simple yet remarkably effective, and one of my favourites of all time:

Elsewhere, the detached misery of ‘Take it Easy (Love Nothing)’ is a cautionary tale of why you should never sleep with your friends, perfectly condensed into less than five minutes. It’s Oberst at his most potently cynical about romance since ‘Lover I Don’t Have to Love’.

‘Arc of Time (Time Code)’ is a meditation on what might happen after death and the compromises (“No more whiskey slurs / No more blonde-haired girls / For your whole eternal life”) which may be required in order to stay on the right side of grace. It’s the sound of a very uneasy peace being made with mortality. It’s the sound of a band – dare it be said? – coming of age. Maybe this is why some consider the album to sit a little awkwardly within the Bright Eyes canon.

It’s an undeniably modern record, of course – there’s next to no sound on this album which hasn’t been aided by electricity. But while I’m Wide Awake… was the capturing of a moment – Oberst’s railing cry of despair at the possibility of the impending Bush re-election – Digital Ash… isn’t afraid to take on themes which are far more timeless. What’s more, it ties them wonderfully with a stunning digital backdrop, and that’s why it’s got my vote for album of the decade.

What’s your choice for album of the decade? Submit your vote!

And here are some of the other contenders’ cases…

At the Drive In – Relationship of Command (Tom Victor)

Bloc Party – Silent Alarm (Joe Curtis)

The Libertines – Up the Bracket (James Franklin)

The Killers – Hot Fuss (Nick Moore)

Coldplay – Parachutes (Dan Bloom)

Sufjan Stevens – Come on Feel the Illinoise (Alex Smith)

Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (Ciaran Jones)

Brand New – The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me (Hugh Morris)

Daft Punk – Discovery (Wil Gilgrass)

Kings of Leon – Only By the Night (Caroline Cook)

The Strokes – Is This It (Alfie Tolhurst)

Kings of Leon – Youth and Young Manhood (Becky Rutt)

Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP (Thomas Mooney)

Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope (Fiona Roberts)

Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around (Mike Brown)