Album review: Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band: 'Outer South'

CONOR OBERST AND THE MYSTIC VALLEY BAND: 'Outer South' (Merge)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Conor Oberst can do no wrong. With every quickfire release, Nebraska's youngest, boldest troubadour demonstrates how effortlessly prolific he is at telling the kind of bittersweet lyrical stories that guarantee the listener's absolute engagement; that evoke the kind of universalism that has made his peers (Dylan, Stevens etc.) such cultural icons. It's a remarkable feat given how productive the man is; hell, there's barely a single year in the last decade in which he hasn't unleashed a new album on the world's unforgiving ears. Under normal circumstances, such rapidity would indicate a lack of quality control, but then, Oberst is no ordinary individual. Whether in his Bright Eyes guise or, as here, alongside the Mystic Valley Band, he continues to demonstrate his quite considerable poetic and vocal talents and use them to create glorious, unyielding melodies; melodies that worm their way from your head to your heart and demand that you continue to revisit them, discovering all new riches that only amplify their power.

As expected, 'Outer South' is full of such delights. This is a vibrantly rich record, painted with fine strokes from a variety of brushes. The Mystic Valley Band have a far larger part to play than on their eponymous debut; each song is layered with playful instrumentation, taking in classic keyboard parts, trombone, acoustic and electric guitar and a whole host of interesting percussion, which both gives the tracks some lift and allows the band to develop an identity of their own. On their 2008 effort, Oberst was very much in the foreground, with the musical accompaniment feeling generally more Bright Eyes-esque. Here, there is the sense that the Mystic Valley guys have been given room to breathe, to explore their own sound and come to a sort of discernible palate of their own making. It's hard to imagine songs like the heavily politicised and accusatory 'Roosevelt Room' or the fantastically jaunty 'Slowly' being given the same treatment on a Bright Eyes LP. MVB is effectively a character of its own here, a companion to the melancholic persona adopted by Oberst. Occasionally, Conor doesn't even get a look in: several tracks on 'Outer South' are sung by other members of the group, and the record is sometimes better for it. 'Difference is Time', a slow, almost funeral, number, is given new dimensions by Jason Boesel's less fragile, deeper delivery, while the thoroughly ridiculous 'Air Mattress', a minute and a half paean to sleeping on 'the air mattress with youuuuuuuuuuuu' would probably have seemed trite and unconvincing in Conor's hands but in Taylor Hollingsworth's, it's a treat, having the same reckless, lightly comedic quality that made 'NYC (Gone, Gone)' from the debut album, such a joy to listen to.

Inevitably, there are plenty of traditional moments on the record too. Oberst's proclivity for the lilting stylistics of folk and country still shines through. 'Nikorette', the lead single, is as conventional as a Tammy Wynette hoedown, with about ten times the charm. He remains lyrically astute too, demonstrating on countless occasions just how talented a wordsmith he is. The songs are best described as poems; rather than tell a straightforward tale in everyday language, they tell engaging tales through pun, metaphor, simile and often, their own individual structures. 'To All the Lights in the Windows' takes snippets of Biblical tales and uses them as a preface to the celebration of love's otherworldly qualities, casting a sort of metaphorical macrocosm over the narrator's ode to his love. What would be enclosed and particular becomes universal and magic, all thanks to a little clever wordplay.

'Ten Women' is even better: around of soft acoustic lullaby, Oberst deconstructs a relationship that never was, beginning with his own promiscuity, discussing his 'ten women between you and me', then moving on to the 'two faces' that he shows to the world, before finally lamenting that 'one witness' is needed 'to mourn for our love'. Over the course of the song's three minutes, the possibility of love collapses and the listener is left shattered, as broken as the poor soul at the heart of the song's narrative. And then there's 'White Shoes', another solo Oberst moment, which juxtaposes calm delivery with jagged acoustic guitar, giving the song's observational qualities a rougher feeling. Its narrator's address to an unknown subject and insistence that 'anything you wanna do' will be fine by him would seem resigned if it weren't for the harsh soundtrack, which suggests that there is a more sinister edge to the tale. These subtleties enliven the album, making it far more than the sum of its parts.

'Outer South' isn't perfect, however; at sixteen tracks, it begins to overstay its welcome. Towards the latter quarter, things become a little repetitive - Oberst could do with trimming the fat somewhat. The biggest offender is surely 'Eagle on a Pole', in which the Mystic Valley Band cover one of Oberst's solo tracks from their previous record! Nothing is added that enhances the original and the track just gets lost amongst the other, infinitely superior, compositions that surround it. It's something of a cheat, feeling more like a need to fill time than a genuine, justified reimagining. Still, if you can overlook some of the excesses, there's a pretty darn brilliant album to be found here. Once again, Oberst proves that his skill with both the pen and the acoustic is virtually unmatched, and the Mystic Valley Band manage to considerably develop their own sound without overshadowing the star of the show. Probably the best alt-folk-country record you'll hear this year. Well, to come out of America that is (Frank Turner, I'm relying on you...) (8/10)