Bright Eyes: Five Dice, All Threes (digital outlets)

Here's an interesting and somewhat relevant comparison: bear with us.

John Lennon's 1970 God on his Plastic Ono Band album was a renunciation of previously held beliefs (Elvis, Kennedy, mantra), the litany ending with “I don't believe in Beatles”. It was his farewell to Beatle John, the 1960s and being reborn.

It was hard for many to take, but he was optimistic: “I just believe in me, Yoko and me.”

Conor Oberst's Hate on this new Bright Eyes album is more misanthropic and pessimistic. His hates include Jesus, Hare Krishna, David Koresh and “the protest singer, staring at me in the mirror. There's nothing left worth fighting for . . . don't you know the bad guys always win”.

Despite the album's negative intensity (El Capitan with “they found you in the morning, hanging from an extension cord”), there's actually much to enjoy: the folk-rock swagger of Bells and Whistles (“and cheap thrills cost a lot”); withering observations like “the public schools tried to ban Mark Twain” on Bas Jan Ader about the Dutch performance artist lost at sea; Tiny Suicides with pedal steel, horns and the obliquely optimistic “am I gonna die? Or beat back all these tiny suicides?”.

Cat Power brings sensitive beauty to All Threes and Tin Soldier Boy imports a series of L.A. images of dying palms, cops, Sinatra and “another shitty Scorsese movie”.

Oddly enough, Bright Eyes make existential doubt, bitterness, death (The Time I Have Left) and self-loathing (the shouty Dublin pub-folk of Rainbow Overpass) sound poetic and sometimes even cynical fun: “Because the trains still run on time”.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here