This is the latest offering from Nebraska’s squire Oberst. A solo record of sorts - his first in 12 years - in so much as it’s actually Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band and initially very difficult to differentiate between this material and that which has been more recently put out under his Bright Eyes pseudonym.

Something unsurprising when you consider Bright Eyes has been the main focus of Oberst’s musical output for nigh on a decade and the two bands share members. Members like drummer Jason Boesel and bassist Macey Taylor who have both played with Bright Eyes in the past and Nate Walcott, keyboard and trumpet player and one of the only three permanent members of Oberst’s more well-known outlet.

The album was recorded in the early part of 2008 in deepest, darkest Mexico - something possibly nodded towards on tracks like ‘Get Well Cards’ where the typically folk and country infused guitars have a spot of Spanish flair about them - with a band Oberst assembled especially, known to friends as The Mystic Valley Band, completed by Conor Oberst himself and guitarists Taylor Hollingsworth and Nick Freitas.

The feel of the record is slightly more cheerful and hopeful than expected but Oberst’s trademark pragmatism and his bluesy lyrical orientation is never far away. Songs like ‘I Don’t Wanna Die (In The Hospital)’ feel like familiar ground for most Oberst enthusiasts, while ‘NYC - Gone Gone’ is a pleasant, if short, chipper number about meeting a love again. Normal service is resumed with ‘Moab’, another travellin’ song, and album closer, ‘Milk Thistle’, a melancholy yet heart-warming piece about life, death and regret. ‘Souled Out!!!’ is one of the songs on the record that stand out as being something a bit different with a slightly more traditional rock feel to it, more like Oberst’s work in Desaparecidos.

Most fans of Oberst, his ‘Cassadaga’ and ‘I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning’ albums with Bright Eyes in particular, will be pleased with this effort but it does feel like it may just as well have been another Bright Eyes record - there’s nothing much new about it at all. It’s even a little dull in places, ‘Sausalito’ being one example of something that feels a bit like a stagnant song that didn’t quite make the cut for the aforementioned ‘Cassadaga’. For this reason, while it is a good record and perfectly listenable, it is a little disappointing that the album is not slightly more adventurous.