Track Listing

1. If Winter Ends
2. Padraic My Prince
3. Contrast And Compare
4. City Has Sex
5. Difference In The Shades
6. Touch
7. June On The West Coast
8. Pull My Hair
9. Poetic Retelling Of An Unfortunate Seduction
10. Tereza And Tomas

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18705 in Music
• Released on: 2005-01-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Last year, Wichita released Fevers and Mirrors in the UK, an album that some of us erroneously believed to be the debut from tortured, soulful, ex-Catholic and Nebraskan, 20-year-old Conner Oberst. Erroneously, because in fact Oberst had already released two previous albums, A Collection of Songs (written and recorded between 1995-1997) and 1998s Letting Off The Happiness. (This, after forming Commander Venus at the age of 14, and releasing another two albums!. As might be expected from a precocious artist who has excited comparisons with Elliott Smith and Daniel Johnston, this is a raw and intimate affair: "Contrast And Compare" strangely sounding like Flaming Lips, "The City Has Sex" as frantic and oversensitive as Oberst's British fans have come to expect, "Touch" saturated in layers of emotion. Members of Neutral Milk Hotel and Of Montreal contribute, and the resulting album is less polished than Fevers And Mirrors, less accomplished, but nonetheless wonderfully affecting. --Jerry Thackray

Customer Reviews

Holds it's own with the New Material.
I am a firm believer that records should not sound over produced and filled with sounds that a really not necessary. This record totally fulfills this idea, the first song 'If Winter ends' is effortlessy sweet and bursting with emotion but still has this raw sound to it that characterises this record. 'Letting Off The Happiness' was Conor's first major release and marks a section of his career whee his youth perfectly balance his music, I can relate to a lot of the songs on this record, it really documents life in a town where sometimes life just isn't what it should be.

The arrangements are quite fantastic on this record, you really get a healthy dose of what can happen when you combine the recording vision of Mike Mogis and the song writing effervescence of Conor Oberst.

This record is an excellant starting point for listening to Bright Eyes but, it's a record that really is one of the best he has recorded despite the perhaps more developped Conor we see in the latest releases. This record is ESSENTIAL and with out doubt holds it's own with the new material.

Excellent - muscle-clenching lyrics and sweeping music
Not having heard any of the other Bright Eyes (the brainchild of Conor Oberst) albums (yet) I was ...pleased to discover how enjoyable this album is. Starting with the first song that manages to mirror the building frustration of the lyrics in the mounting intensity of the music, continuing with the harrowing second song (whose haunting lyrics begin with "i had a brother once, he drowned in a bathtub before he had ever learned how to talk") and following through to the very last track this is a collection of beautiful, intelligent, heartfelt songs that leave you emotinally drenched, but happy at having had the experience.