Album Review: Bright Eyes, Five Dice, All Threes, out now

Written By Christian Cole, OOTB Publications

The last few years have been nothing short of exciting for fans of Bright Eyes and frontman Conor Oberst.

Seeing the band’s return to form in 2020 with Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was was a stunning and triumphant comeback with a backing band that featured the likes of Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Jon Theodore (the Mars Volta, QOTSA). There was also a string of EPs that had re-imagined versions of some of Bright Eyes’ favorite tracks from throughout their career. Needless to say, fans have been more than satisfied in recent years.

Now, Bright Eyes is releasing the first album of originals since 2020’s Down In The Weeds… and fans should be absolutely ecstatic.

With Five Dice, All Threes (Dead Oceans) we get a band that’s been sharpened to the perfect point. Oberst’s songwriting capability is in full form on this record, leading us through a 13-song cinematic and explorative experience—through a whirlwind of twanging banjos, crying pedal steel guitars, jazz fueled piano, film samples and record scratches. Bright Eyes delivers in full force, yet again.

This LP is a perfect show of a band whose chemistry is unmatched and ambitions know no boundaries. Sonically, we get one of the bands most full sounding records; it touches on nearly every sound expressed by the band in their twenty odd years of releases, coming together to become the perfect culmination of sound and feel. This record is EXACTLY where this band should be right now, and it’s impossible to ignore or deny.

Five Dice, All Threes is surrounded by an air of celebratory sadness; feeling like the soundtrack to the most somber wedding, or perhaps the happiest funeral one could ever attend. And if that doesn’t sum up what fans expect and need from the aging songwriter and his ever revolving band of talent, then I don’t know what does. The power in Oberst’s pen is more apparent than ever before and his band is sharper than we’ve ever seen.

It’s rare to hear a record and think, “this just makes perfect sense,” but that’s exactly what Five Dice, All Threes instills. Never stale, never leaving you unmoved for the entirety of your listen. These songs will go down in Oberst’s songbook with as much love and admiration as some of his most poise and celebrated music to date. It’s hard to imagine a follow up to an album as grand and dramatic as Down In The Weeds…, but we got exactly that, if not more.

From the rolling country Americana of “El Capitan” to the incredibly-somber piano and bass fueled “Three Dice” and the cinematic string explosions on “Trains Still Run On Time,” we get an entire world of sound and feeling, something to sink our teeth into the next few years as we anxiously await finding out exactly where this band will go next.

Rating

4.8/5

Favorite Tracks

“All Threes,” “Real Feel 105”

Purchase Album Here

https://brighteyes.lnk.to/Five-Dice-All-Threes

https://brighteyes.merchtable.com/music

https://brighteyes.bandcamp.com/album/five-dice-all-threes

Tracklist