Bright Eyes: Digital Ash in a Digital Urn

Music review by Johanna Armstrong

With a bizarre electronic synthesizer opening song, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn could at first probably be mistaken for some reject Kid A track, but it’s not completely out of the Bright Eyes style. Putting bizarre or tedious openings in order to weed out “casual listeners” has almost become a trademark of the band’s ring-leader, Conor Oberst, present in every single one of his albums since he put out his first when he was 16. However, the chaos and disarray end suddenly with the sound of an alarm clock: appropriate and perfect for his recurring theme of needing to wake up from our dreams, as well as its purpose, which is to clear your mind and have you focus on what’s at hand: the music.

Digital Ash strays from what we’re used to from Conor, that is: raw and simple honesty shot through an acoustic guitar and his wavering voice. Though, buried under the unusual use of digital and computerized sound effects, we find that all of that is still there. His voice still cracks, his words are still as uncomfortably honest as they were in Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, and he sticks to the thematic guns that have made him into what media describes as “the Ritalin generation’s Bob Dylan.” Digital Ash’s second song, “Gold Mine Gutted”, could possibly be the most subtly depressing songs ever written about drug abuse and self-destruction, with no crescendo to speak of leading to his final line, delivered without emphasis except for the last three words which are spoken without instrumentation. “And all those white lines/that sped us up, /we hurry to our death. /Well, I lagged behind, /so you got ahead.” Digital Ash gradually turns into what we expect from Bright Eyes, clearing out most of the electronica and depending on simple guitar and drums to deliver some of the most powerful verses of the CD. However, the occasional prescence of heavily distorted guitars and digital drum beats gives the album a sort of edgy feel of distress and anxiety, completely fitting considering the subject matter and Conor’s own notorious reputation for being modern music’s own destructive romantic. Most of the album contains references to drugs and alcohol and sex, but not in glorification of either. The single, “Take it Easy (Love Nothing)” is mostly about a one nigh stand with a friend, ending in Conor’s desperateness to find something like that again, and then his resentment for said friend, while “Devil in the Details” seems to outline an attempt at reform, that is sobriety and fidelity, but alas, the devil is in the details and he can’t seem to bring himself to change, or be true to his promises.

“Light Pollution,” one of the songs most upbeat songs, outlines the life of a friend and the struggles he goes through in an attempt to survive today’s society. “But it’s funny how alive he felt/down in that unemployment line,” before ending in his eventual demise. “And maybe he lost control/f---ing with the radio/but I bet the stars seemed so close/at the end.”
“Easy/Lucky/Free” ends the CD beautifully and appropriately, outlining the circle of life through the eyes of Conor Oberst.

For all the heat he’s received for being melodramatic and piteous, Conor pulls it off so well that you wouldn’t want it any other way. Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, while at first coming off as a studio experiment with sound effects and overdramatics, is a beautiful album, complimenting its twin album I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning expertly. And for all its talk of self-destruction and child-like confusion and loss of innocence, there seems to be a small sign of hope in a verse from “Theme from Piñata”: “I know debris; it covers everything/But still I am in love with this life.”