It’s clear that the year-plus Bright Eyes’s Conor Oberst took between 2005’s widely acclaimed I’M WIDE AWAKE, IT’S MORNING (and the simultaneously released DIGITAL ASH IN A DIGITAL URN) and 2007’s CASSADAGA was well spent. The product of intensive studio time, a crack assembly of musicians, and lavish, lovely production and arrangements, CASSADAGA stands as one of Bright Eyes’ most confident and consistent works.

The album throws together genres–folk, country, rock, pop–and coats it all in a gauzy dressing of strings, harmonies, and high-end atmospherics. Yet at the center of it all is still Obert’s songwriting: witty, emotive, literate, and replete, this time out, with references to the expanse and grandeur of America as a playing field for life, love, and politics. At times reflective, at times rousing, CASSADAGA plays like a sweet pop dream, and adds another notch to Bright Eyes’ already impressive discography.

Tracklisting
1. Clairaudients (Kill Or Be Killed)
2. Four Winds
3. If The Brakeman Turns My Way
4. Hot Knives
5. Make A Plan To Love Me
6. Soul Singer In A Session Band
7. Classic Cars
8. Middleman
9. Cleanse Song
10. No One Would Riot For Less
11. Coat Check Dream Song
12. I Must Belong Somewhere
13. Lime Tree

Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (p.61) – 4 stars out of 5 — “[With] remarkable love songs….[Oberst] shows he can still tell us something by communing with himself.”

Rolling Stone (p.108) – Included in Rolling Stone’s “50 Top Albums of the Year 2007″ — “Oberst’s loose, memorable tunes and lyrics about crises both personal and global are consistently engaging…”

Spin (p.89) – 4 stars out of 5 — “Oberst’s countryish genre studies have deepened with a very adult loneliness.”

Entertainment Weekly (p.72) – “Musically, it’s his richest album yet, full of Nashville twang and Branson brassiness. And lyrically, the itinerant-traveler conceit is intriguing…” — Grade: B

Q (p.117) – 4 stars out of 5 — “The strapping, clear-headed coherence of ‘Four Winds’ is echoed throughout the album….At long last his star is born.”

Alternative Press (p.150) – 4 stars out of 5 — “[With] ambitious string arrangements and swinging instrumentation that echo great ’70s works by Joe Cocker and Elton John.”

CMJ (p.6) – “[H]e offers some of the most polished country-folk of his 14-year career. His lyrical acuity is in tact…”

Kerrang (Magazine) (p.49) – “With sweeping string sections almost reminiscent of Smashing Pumpkins, psychedelic pop structures, political protest poetics and dusty country production….[His] most opulent work yet.”

Q (Magazine) (p.80) – Ranked #23 in Q’s “The 50 Best Albums Of 2007″ — “Conor Oberst has made his most assured album to date…”

Mojo (Publisher) (p.110) – 4 stars out of 5 — “CASSADAGA is an album to warm souls, rally minds and break hearts in equal measure.”