Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors (2000)

I remember first hearing about Bright Eyes from a friend of mine who worked in a record shop and had often introduced me to great new bands. Something about the way he talked about Bright Eyes told me that this would not necessarily be that easy band to get into. And fair enough, when I first listened to their album Lifted, I thought it was mostly a bit too lo-fi for my taste. Then again, there were already on that first listen a couple of songs that really struck me as something truly special. The more I listened to them, the more I liked them. When I finally found Fevers and Mirrors I was completely sold. To this day I think this is the best album by Bright Eyes. There's something really melancholic about this album and as you know, I really like that. Conor Oberst's trembling voice is perfect in interpreting these kinds of anguished and sad songs.

I think I first borrowed this album from the library and it took me quite a while to find it in record shops. This is not exactly a kind of an album that you find in every record shop. I still think it would be so cool to own this album on vinyl where the mirror is much more authentic than the grey thing on the CD, but at least back then it was too difficult to try and find this on vinyl.

Bright Eyes slowly became one of my all-time favourite bands. Well, 'band' is a bit of a misnomer as this is really all about the frontman Conor Oberst, but you know what I mean. Conor Oberst's melancholic Americana is sometimes really lo-fi and quite rough around the edges, but that's just what makes it so authentic and beautiful. He definitely doesn't have a trained voice for singing, but it's immediately recognisable. More recently, he has started making much more polished songs and albums, but something has been lost in the process. I still think these early albums are his best work.

Like all Bright Eyes albums, this one too starts with a song that's really lo-fi and strange. I think this kind of started as a joke, but then they had to do it for every album. It's a good way to make sure that a random listener who's not into strange indie stuff won't continue past the first minutes. On this album, that song is The Spindle, A Darkness, A Fever, and a Necklace that features a little boy reading a book Mitchell Is Moving by Marjorie Weinman. The boy is helped by a person who sounds like Conor Oberst, but in reality, it's Todd Fink of The Feint impersonating Oberst.

The album starts properly with the song A Scale, A Mirror And Those Indifferent Clocks, a loud waltz with desperate sounding vocals and humming organ backgrounds. There's something in this song that reminds me of Mercury Rev, otherwise quite different kind of band. Next up is The Calendar Hung Itself... This song is one of the best ones Bright Eyes have ever made. This is a proper indie rock song with super dark melodies. The hypnotic rhythm reminds me of the band White Rabbits. Something Vague changes the mood into quiet folk where Oberst gets to show the other qualities of his voice. In this song his voice is more just trembling and about to break at any moment, but I still love that vulnerability in his voice. The Movement of the Hand has beautiful set of different organ sounds that make a truly magical fairytale mood. Arienette is my favourite song from this album and possibly one of my favourite songs of all times by anyone. There's real sort of desperation in this song. When I feel like having a good healing cry, this song works really well for it. I wish I could write something as beautiful and raw as this song. When the Curious Girl Realizes She Is Under Glass has one of the most lo-fi sounds on the album. It sounds like the song has just been recorded in a room full of people with a television on and it hasn't been mixed at all. Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh is another one of the masterpieces on this album. The song starts really quietly, but raises into a beautifully anguished song. I like the interplay between raw lo-fi bits and the properly mixed parts. The Center of the World has some hypnotic guitars with an organ in the background. It takes quite a while for this song to start properly, but I like how the song grows slowly. Sunrise, Sunset is a beautiful ominous waltz that reminds me of songs in The Sound of Music, but some kind of deranged dark version of the musical. The interplay between quiet acoustic bits and the proper rock bursts is just beautiful. One of the best songs on the album. An Attempt to Tip the Scales has beautiful fragile vocals and a melody that seems a bit lighter from the rest of the album. Perhaps that's what the title of the song is referring to. The album ends with another strange song filled with surprising sounds, A Song to Pass the Time.

I don't know if there are any music videos for this album. At least I can't find any. I guess there wasn't much budget for it back when this was made. But I guess that's alright as I've already rambled on quite a bit in this blog post. Anyway, as you've probably understood from this post, I really really like Bright Eyes and especially these early and melancholic albums. Fevers and Mirrors is definitely an album that will follow me throughout my life at least in some way.

Listen to the album on Spotify.