Pros: 22 minutes of heightened emotions, and lush acoustic backdrops
Cons: I ended up liking Neva Dinova even more than my beloved Bright Eyes.
The Bottom Line: Not so much a split EP as a collaboration between two terrific songwriters - and the results are loose, fun, and still highly affecting.
plorentz's Full Review: One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels by Bright Eyes/Neva D...
There’s a man holding a megaphone, he must have been the voice of God, and bystanders claimed they saw angels flying up and down the lawn, but actually, it was just a new split EP by two of Omaha’s indie-rock finest: Bright Eyes and Neva Dinova.
“One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels” is deceptively billed as a split EP by the two acts, and yes, the songs alternate between them, but in fact, the disc feels much more collaborative than the term would imply. There aren’t really any songwriting credits listed – only publishing information. And in the session credits, all the musicians (and package designers) are listed in a random order, not distinguishing whom belongs with which band.
Even the title suggests it: “One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels”. All as if to say, Hey, folks! This is not a split EP! We are one band, in the studio, indivisible, with folky tunes and quivery vocals for all. And in fact, were it not for the measurable difference in quiveriness in the voices of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst (super-quivery, especially when he flips out at the end of “Black Comedy”) and Neva Dinova’s Jake Bellows (more twangy than quivery, see his Wilco-ish performance on “Tripped”), it would be hard to tell whose songs are whose here.
Songwriters Bellows and Oberst both share a penchant for poetic reflection that is both highly emotional, but focused on intimate, tenderly rendered images and observations, and intuitive lyrical leaps.
Take Oberst’s “Spring Cleaning”, the most spare number here, and also the most lovely. The song opens with a couple verses about Amy being pregnant and about how beautiful she is, even though her man is a jerk. And then the second half of the song ponders the season – the rain coming down at night, and birds coming home for “spring cleaning”. And then someone named Casey Scott whistles, and it all feels like a scene out of “Charlotte’s Web”.
Likewise Bellows’ “Poison” is a subversively chipper number that whips up lyrical lassoes about a relationship that just won’t die, all set to a familiar melody that ends abruptly on a note of bitter resignation: “Destroy yourself, what the fuck”. Even better is “Get Back” which alternates between spare, despondent verses that trudge along like lonely cowboy musings (“Keep those that you love furthest from you, and try to take care of them too”), and an upbeat call-and-response chorus.
The instrumentation throughout the disc is spare, and layered, with moments (see Oberst’s super-catchy “I’ll Be Your Friend”) of lush near-chaos – cellos and banjos and mandolins and – what? – a sax solo that sounds like it was sampled from that Jackson Browne/Clarence Clemons duet "You're a Friend of Mine". And then there are the goofy little tape tricks that pop up every now and then like they always have on Bright Eyes records.
“One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels” has an impressive musical and lyrical scope for a six-song EP, and though the three Bright Eyes songs are impressive and at least one (“Spring Cleaning”) ranks with Oberst’s best work, what really makes this CD essential are the Neva Dinova tracks, which all make this Neva Dinova newbie want to hear more immediately. This is one of those little treasures that sneaks in under the radar and just waits to be discovered. And re-discovered. And re-discovered again.
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“One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels” by Bright Eyes/Neva Dinova
Crank Records
Released 4/20/04
Produced by Bright Eyes and Neva Dinova
22 min.
SONGS: Tripped – Black Comedy – Poison – I’ll Be Your Friend – Get Back – Spring Cleaning
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