Better Oblivion Community Center

After weeks of cryptic brochures and strange voicemail recordings, Better Oblivion Community Center has been revealed as the new project of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers. The band’s self-titled debut opens with the gorgeous “Didn’t Know What I Was in For,” a folksy ballad that laments the world’s ills (homelessness, cancer, capitalism, the Syrian civil war), but also mocks our feeble attempts to help. Rather than coming across as a malicious attack on slacktivists, though, it empathetically encapsulates the rampant hopelessness and compassion fatigue facing the world in 2019. “Sleepwalkin’” (ironically) is slightly livelier, shifting between verses by Oberst and Bridgers before the pair unite for the finale — establishing a give-and-take-and-share dynamic that lasts through the rest of the album. On “Dylan Thomas,” Bridgers’ recurring sonic images of ghosts and hell seamlessly blend with Oberst’s familiar references to famous writers, American iconography and alcohol. Oberst leads on “Service Road,” and “Exception to the Rule” sounds straight out of his Digital Ash in a Digital Urn era, while “Chesapeake” beautifully echoes Bridgers’ debut, Stranger in the Alps. The best parts, though, are the moments where it doesn’t sound exactly like anything either artist has released before, yet still shows two songwriters at the heights of their talent. (Dead Oceans) HIP- HOP