This is appropriate insofar as music is and has always been a potentially emotive medium. Unfortunately, the only emotion we ever seem to catch a glimpse of in Oberst's work is sadness. And not any specific kind of sadness. It often seems as though Oberst is emoting for the sake of emoting. If this is the case, we can sympathize with him.
Nobody likes to be sad.
But Oberst demonstrates so little focus in the relaying these sad feelings that perhaps a few sessions with a psychiatrist would yield results of a more tangible and expedient nature than the channeling of these feelings into the construction of pop-music. We, perhaps, most often feel that gnawing glumness in our gut during late autumn. It sports a brown and black drawing on its cover, depicting a forest whose trees' dead brown leaves fall through the thick air toward the muddy brown ground. Under the brown trees lie two human skeletons, softy gracing the barren brown landscape. The music of Bright Eyes sounds like the cover-art.