It's a Group Effort: Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, 'Outer South'

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IF ANYONE CAN claim to be a veteran of the indie-music industry, it's Conor Oberst.

A member of an early version of The Faint, Commander Venus (which preceded and anticipated the Saddle Creek label), and other projects too numerous to list, Oberst is best known as the front man of Bright Eyes, where he put his razor-sharp lyrical wit and heart-wrenching-melody-writing skills to use. As a poster child for the "emo" movement in the late 1990s, the poet-musician rubbed some bare-bones rawness onto a music scene that didn't quite know what "indie" was yet.

He still remains a polarizing figure in some respects, though — many listeners signed up for either the "love him" or "hate him" camps early on, and haven't budged since.

Bright Eyes has taken a back seat to Oberst's myriad other projects recently, most significantly The Mystic Valley Band — an outfit likely to be just as polarizing as early Oberst was, but in a different way. On a solo album in 2008, retroactively dubbed a Mystic Valley Band project, the songwriter's familiar melancholy had matured and been brought a little more into focus. The group's new release, "Outer South" (Merge Records), is much more of a group effort, presenting a stronger identity and a more fleshed-out creative vision.

The difference (and probably to some, the drawback) is that it is more of a genre album, and that genre is down-home Americana. Oberst hinted at this side of himself on earlier songs, like "Four Winds," but rarely before have folksy influences so dominated his songs.

Oberst hasn't been hailed by some as the new Bob Dylan for nothing, of course — his vocal style, hyper-descriptive and often poignant lyrics, and genuinely great guitar-picking can lend themselves well to standard blues-rock songs, and he hasn't by any means shunned such application of them. But as his first solo project to include songs written and sung by other people as well as the first to embrace a full-band sound, it's a significant departure.

Compared with his minimalist, experimental approach to songwriting in the past, the tracks on Outer South are more structured, more accurately rhymed and more formulaic (makes you wonder when he's going to call in Ben Kweller for a duet), and even though the songs still have plenty to say, it's probably Oberst's most feel-good album to date.

Of course, "feel-good" is all relative when it comes to the king of emo — there's always a sense of brooding underneath it all, whether it's the song "Big Black Nothing" or the wry sense of loss that comes with self-denial in "Nikorette" ("I'm just trying to stay a human being / Sitting in the sun eating ice cream / Texting my friend about a bad, bad dream / Just had to tell someone who knows me"). "Ten Women" showcases Oberst's trembling voice perfectly, and the two extra guitars provided by Nik Freitas and Taylor Hollingsworth on all tracks lend a remarkable depth to what would otherwise be fairly generic melodies.

The Oberst angst is still there in places, but it shows more maturity than in some of his other work, and the sound on "Outer South" is bigger, deeper and more epic in scope. Oberst could do worse if that's the path he's taking, but whether he'll disappoint old fans in the process remains to be seen.

» Filene Center at Wolf Trap, 1551 Trap Road, Vienna, Va.; with Wilco; Wed., July 8, 8 p.m.; $38 and $32; (703) 255-1868.

» RELATED: "An Album By Any Other Name: Wilco, 'Wilco (The Album)'" CD review [Express. June 2009]

Written by Express contributor Afton Lorraine Woodward
Photo courtesy Merge Records

» Download an MP3 of "Nikorette."
» Watch the Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley documentary, "One of My Kind."