Rating: NN
Conor Oberst’s generous, occasionally uneven, musical output doesn’t lend itself to easy categorization. Anything from stripped-down heart-on-sleeve folk to electronic seems to be fair game. But in terms of raw, swelling emotion, you certainly know his songs when you hear them. That’s his strongest suit, but you wouldn’t know it from his latest non-Bright Eyes project.
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As a partnership in songwriting between Oberst and his new backing quartet, Outer South consists of a bloated set of tunes that comes off sounding like a lesser, second-rate hybrid of Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle. Too often it feels as if they’re all going through the motions, opting to play it safe, while Oberst himself seems bored and uninterested.
Top track: Roosevelt Room
