Music Theory: Conor Oberst Goes Solo (kind of)

-I've long had a love/hate relationship with Conor Oberst. I dug Bright Eyes when a friend first showed them to me in 9th grade, but I fell off the bandwagon as we were barraged with side project after side project and every magazine hailing Oberst as the next Dylan.
-For his new self titled album, Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band headed to a remote mountain villa in Mexico to record for a month, and however many cliché organic cringes that may induce, the results are surprisingly good.
-There are certain people that are going to say that I've gone back on my principles for suddenly liking Oberst, and maybe I have. More likely though, is that I've just been so entrenched in unpoetically direct music for the last few years that a stew of metaphor set to an easy going blues-rock backdrop is refreshing. I still won't call him the next Dylan though.
-Overall B+
-New video for the song "Souled Out" after the jump.