Bright Eyes

Item: Fevers and Mirrors
Author: Sarah Jones

Fevers and Mirrors

(2000)

Reviewed by Sarah Jones

Discogs Bandcamp Apple Music TIDAL Amazon Music Spotify YouTube Music

Label Saddle Creek RecordsBandoppler2000

indie rock lo-fi

In Walden Thoreau said that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Well, so does twenty-year-old Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes. But as his newest full-length Fevers and Mirrors shows, he's just not so quiet about it.

Bright Eyes is Oberst with an ever changing line up, past contributors including members of Neutral Milk Hotel, Cursive, Lullaby for the Working Class, Sorry About Dresden, and others who with their combined talents pour forth Oberst's chaotic, yet melodic brand of bedroom pop. The quavering sound of Oberst's voice falls somewhere in between Elliott Smith and Mark Mallman, at times a hushed whisper sending a chill down the spine, and at others a frantic scream amongst a tweaked, sometimes muddled blend of acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, accordion, glockenspiel, vibraphone, flute, organs, drums, piano, steel pedal, mellotron, and mandolin. As in his other offerings, such as 99's promising Letting Off the Happiness, the production is all lo-fi, providing a roughness and making the songs extremely intimate and genuine, and the musical styles ranging from the fast paced, frenetic "The Calendar Hung Itself..." to the stripped urban folkiness of "A Song to Pass the Time."

Haunted by memories from his past, and stuck in a suspended state of indecision and doubt of everything, including doubt itself, Oberst, a clever and insightful storyteller, relates such instances of returning to an apartment, and after brushing the snow off your jacket, collapsing in a chair, and drinking the cold away while not being sure why you're doing it, but just needing something to fill up the day...just a few more hours. And also effectively communicates the awkwardness, shock, and revulsion of the epiphany that you are in a display case for everyone to see in the song "When the Curious Girl Realizes She's Under Glass."

Oberst's depressed state of cognitive dissonance and manic depression is, perhaps, most chillingly revealed in the song "Haligh, Haligh, a Lie, Haligh," as he impassionately screams, "I'll give you only one reply, I know not who I am," then disheartedly sings, "But I talk in the mirror to the stranger that appears. Our conversations are circles, always one-sided, nothing is clear. Except we keep coming back to this meaning that I lack. He says the choices were given, and now you must live them or just not live. Do you want that?"

Perhaps the only ostensible fault with Fevers and Mirrors occurs at the end of the second to last song, "An Attempt to Tip the Scales," where Oberst reveals the themes and explains the repeated imagery he uses in a pseudo-interview for a fake radio station. While it was certainly done tongue-in-cheek, its randomness can come off as quite self-indulgent and pretentious. But no problem, stereos have skip buttons, and the closing song more than makes up for it.

While Saddle Creek's bookmarking of Oberst as "one of the most important songwriters of our time" is undoubtedly premature, as Oberst is only twenty, and is only on his third album, I wouldn't be surprised if he lives to warrant that labeling. Fevers and Mirrors has secured a place in the upper half of my top five for the year, and with only two months remaining in 2000, the chances that it will be bumped down are very slim.