Every Bright Eyes album adheres to a formula, and the formula is this: a few great songs, sometimes more than a few; a few experimental songs (often with a mishmash of non-musical audio samples), but usually not too many; and usually a couple of songs that — apart from being fantastic, catchy and earnest — might make it onto mainstream radio. “Shell Games,” the foremost single from The People’s Key, stands out as one of the great songs, with both broader appeal and the unflagging energy of a band that may have just released its final album.
“Firewall,” on the other hand, is one of the weird songs (although it would be quite fine, and more or less intact, if the first 2.5 minutes were excised). But experimentation is all well and good; Bright Eyes has been Conor’s laboratory for experimentation, and in the past it’s been just as meaningful for him to discover what doesn’t work, as it is for him to marshal up lyrical and melodic masterpieces. But The People’s Key suffers from having a too many middling songs — neither weird nor great — that fail to distinguish themselves. They’re just fine, but they don’t command attention as the hushed whisper of “Lua” or the freewheeling country spirit of “Four Winds” did.
Before Cassadaga, Conor’s best work overflowed with earnestness, and it was the profusion of feeling that garnered him so many fans when he was a teenager. On The People’s Key, Conor is more self-assured, more restrained and less political than he has been in the past. “Ladder Song” is spare and elegiac, and it is the most outstanding song on the album because it focuses so intimately on the story, the piano accompaniment and Conor’s voice. Other songs, like “Triple Spiral” and “A Machine Spiritual (In the People’s Key)” are almost overwhelming and wouldn’t suffer from having a few layers stripped back. The unremarkable songs on this album aren’t bad; but what’s good in each of them is buried too deeply.
Music video for “Shell Games”:
I grew up with a Bright Eyes that had a quavering voice, and this is how I like to remember Conor:
[...] On the most recent Bright Eyes album, Conor Oberst took to the piano for this introspective ballad. Markedly different from “Shell Games,” the slick lead single from the album, or from the trademark Bright Eyes songs that threatened to tear apart the listener or Conor himself (see “Method Acting”), and a tranquil chord-changer compared with the flames engulfing the album cover, “Ladder Song” showcases the best of Conor’s lyrics and voice. (Read TMOT’s full album review here.) [...]