Conor Oberst - Ruminations

Conor Oberst
Ruminations
2016
Spotify

Few people embodied the "Emo" movement quite like Conor Oberst. He started essentially an emo label, made some of the greatest songs of the genre as Bright Eyes and pushed his feelings on to everyone who was willing to listen. Some of this was transcendent, while others were just to sappy for their own good. On this new album we find Conor being perhaps the most himself He has ever been. Ruminations was recorded during an Omaha winter in just 48 hours. There are no splashy orchestra hits, nor fancy production work that made some of his earlier work different from the rest of the pack, instead this is paired down acoustic guitar, harmonica, piano an Conor. He is totally alone, and the music reflects that in spades. The utter loneliness that is this record drills right to the core of you. Because Conor is alone you are alone as well floating on a Island lost yet still able to send a song into the either with hopes someone might pick up on it. The album may have been put together quickly but Conor doing his best Dylan impression is not such a bad thing. Ruminations arrives after Conor went through a very public, and very untrue, rape allegation that triggered a $1 million libel suit. Conor's accuser eventually recanted and apologized but the ordeal seems to have isolated Conor and sent him down a path of self evaluation and whether or not what He always believed is actually true.

Ruminations sounds more like Bright Eye's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning than anything else Conor has done since. Perhaps the speed of the recording process allowed him to get back to his base emotions about religion, love and despair. the music just pours out of him on this album instead of having to fight and claw for each and every note. He also ditches his well worn warble on this album, allowing his voice to be less grading and more just a bit odd. His vocal performance is probably the best it has ever been, something that comes with years and years of trying to get it right. There is also a strong sense of laying ones arms down on this record, like a long fight has been had but the weary fighter is tired and knelling in the mud is a better option than swinging again. "The Rain Follows the Plow" is the one real misstep here where Conor seems to rely on a trope rather than personal experience to write a song, and it just seems off. The day drinking siren of the emo generation has perhaps made more of a push for that mantle than ever before, but only time will tell if this move will be the thing that brings Conor back to a whole new crop of depressives or if he will fade singing his songs into obscurity.

7.9 out of 10