BRIGHT EYES
Lifted or The Story is in the Soil Keep Your Ear to the Ground (Saddle Creek Records)
Reviewed by Holly Day

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I don't know what to make of this new Bright Eyes record, especially in comparison to the previous record, Fevers and Mirrors. There was an incredibly tender and fragile quality to Fevers... that made it absolutely endearing to me, and I'm not finding that quality much at all on this new album. This new album is too blatant to be dark, too loud to be vulnerable, and even the lyrics are too angrily tossed off to come off as anything deeper than ranting and raving. Even the wonderfully complex instrumentation that was present in Fevers and Mirrors has been abandoned, leaving instead standard pop ensemble-driven tunes and a folk guitar. It's still a good record, but it's not Bright Eyes' best.

© 2002 - Holly Day