Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band – Outer South

Ever since his 2004 breakthrough album I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, Conor Oberst - once the enfant terrible of alt. country - has been getting more and more traditionally-minded. Its follow-up, 2006's Cassadaga, was his most mature effort to date (and allegedly, his first album since kicking drugs); in spite of flashes of greatness, Oberst himself sounded spent and the album seemed to sprawl in all the wrong directions, with many of the sessions' best songs (specifically the frantic 'Cartoon Blues') snuck out as b-sides. Shorn of Bright Eyes collaborator Mike Mogis's glossy production, Oberst's 2008 solo debut was an unexpected triumph; recorded in Mexico with a makeshift band, it remains arguably the least self-conscious album in his entire back catalogue, and its compact twelve-song tracklist had a sense of fun and excitement that was sorely missing from its Bright Eyes predecessor.The result of nearly a solid year of touring, Outer South - which is credited to Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band (its booklet littered with pictures of the band in matching MVB jackets) - is likely to strike fear into the more iconoclastic of Oberst's fans. Not only do other band members take up songwriting duties on half of the album's sixteen songs, but vocals too, with one of the album's better Oberst-penned moments, the reflective 'Worldwide', nervously sung by bassist Macey Taylor. Surprisingly, many of the contributions from the other band members actually hold together quite well, even if it's hard to listen without comparing them to the band's de facto leader. Guitarist Nik Freitas's vocals may call to mind a more timid Oberst, but 'Big Black Nothing' may well be the best thing here - a darkly ramshackle country track complete with barrelhouse piano and the whole gang joining in on backing vocals. Meanwhile, Taylor Hollinghurst's cute 'Air Mattress' resembles nothing more than early Fountains of Wayne, right down to its jaunty analog synth hook.As for Conor's cuts...well, perhaps his enthusiasm was spent on encouraging his bandmates, but they're mostly disappointingly unmemorable. The campfire singalong 'Ten Women' is charming, and the strident shuffle of opener 'Slowly (Oh So Slowly)' is certainly sets the album's breezy tone, but the lightness of touch that made Conor Oberst such a genuinely great record appears to be missing. His most striking track here is the ferociously riff-rocking 'Roosevelt Room'; with shout-outs to Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson, it's one of the few times that the Outer South's classic rock influences all come together - a self-proclaimed "tear gas riot song", and the kind of enraged stream-of-consciousness diatribe (à la 'Four Winds') that will no doubt come even fewer and further between now that the right man's in the White House.The album's collaborative spirit is a bold move for an artist so fêted for his independence; indeed, it's telling that, rather than any lyric that would suggest Oberst's new-found appreciation for the band dynamic, it's a Walt Whitman line - heart-warmingly displayed on the album's inner sleeve alongside a picture of those jackets - that sums the nature of the project up: "I have learned that to be with those I like is enough." Sadly, although you can certainly appreciate the band's enthusiasm for the project, when taking Outer South as a seventy-minute whole, it's a different proposition altogether for the listener to try and match it. 62%Conor Oberst on MySpace