Obviously things are bad right now. But there are a few bright (*wink*) spots in the darkness, and one of them is Bright Eyes. 2020 is a year awash in anniversaries for the band: Fevers and Mirrors was released twenty years ago this May, while Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning both turned fifteen back in January.
The last record we got from Bright Eyes was The People’s Key in 2011, their ninth album followed by an unofficial and prolonged hiatus. But now, the iconic indie folk trio—frontman Conor Oberst, multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis, and multi-instrumentalist Nathaniel Walcott—have newly signed to indie label Dead Oceans (with whom Oberst released the Better Oblivion Community Center LP with Phoebe Bridgers), and intend to drop new music from their hearts into your homes.
There’s no word on exactly when the record will release, but in a typed note from the band (see it below), they promise it’ll be this year. They also reveal that brand new single “Persona Non Grata” (which is Latin for “an unacceptable person”) has an instrument they’ve never experimented with before: the bagpipes. Listen here.
