As a title, as a thesis, Down In The Weeds, Where the World Once Was functions on a global, apocalyptic level of anxiety that looms throughout the record. For Conor Oberst, coming back to Bright Eyes was a bit of that.
A symbol of simpler times, vaguely nostalgic. There are a thousand truisms about home and childhood, none of them true but all of them honest. Who is just out of frame? What does the soft focus obscure? How did the recording itself change the scene? Some scrutinize the past and some never look back and Lucy Dacus, a lifelong writer and close reader, has long been the former sort. Bright Eyes ' albums throughout the s all issued on Oberst 's indie imprint Saddle Creek were some of their best-loved and best-performing, with releases like 's Digital Ash in a Digital Urn turning the tides of indie culture as well as cracking the Billboard charts.
The roots of Bright Eyes reach back to , when at just 14 years old, Oberst was attracting regional attention as the singer and guitarist for Omaha band Commander Venus.
A prolific songwriter, he soon amassed a number of songs that didn't gel with the rest of Commander Venus ' catalog, 20 of which were compiled and released in as A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded , a solo record that doubled as Oberst 's first release under the Bright Eyes moniker. As Conor Oberst graduated from teenaged life to adulthood, his productivity increased. The Bright Eyes sound had expanded by this point, with Oberst finding room for flute, piano, and accordion in the band's music.
The frontman also found room to pursue alternate projects, and he dedicated some time to Desaparecidos before returning to the studio with Mike Mogis in Hailed by some critics as the next Dylan , Oberst supported the releases with a round of festival appearances and international shows before returning to the studio once more. Recorded in L. Both releases featured full instrumentation -- including pedal steel, Dobro, xylophone, and orchestral swells -- making them some of Bright Eyes ' most developed works up to that point.
Cassadaga debuted at number four in America and number 13 in the U. Even so, Oberst followed such success by decamping to rural Mexico to work on his first solo effort in years. Recorded in a makeshift studio with a cast of musicians dubbed the Mystic Valley Band , Conor Oberst arrived in The project soon evolved from a solo effort into a full-band affair, and the Mystic Valley Band returned in with Outer South , an album that included songs written and sung by several of Oberst 's bandmates.
In , A Christmas Album , which had originally been quietly issued in as a Saddle Creek online-store exclusive, was finally scheduled for its first full commercial release. This unique holiday album featured a selection of Christmas standards performed in Bright Eyes ' trademark bittersweet style, with help from a plethora of other Saddle Creek artists including members of Cursive , Desaparecidos , Neva Dinova , and Azure Ray.
This was leading slowly to the band's emergence from their dormant state. In January of , Bright Eyes announced they had signed to indie imprint Dead Oceans for the release of their ninth album, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was , and began sharing new songs in advance of the record's release. The album arrived in August of the same year. AllMusic relies heavily on JavaScript.
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