Sunrise Sunset A Bright Eyes Compendium

The predicted Billy Bragg spell didn’t really materialise and this morning it was instead Sunrise Sunset A Bright Eyes Compendium. A very well made compilation of Bright Eyes songs someone, forgotten, made me in around 2001.
I first became aware of Bright Eyes when the Virgin Megastore in which I worked stocked the split single Bright eyes did with Her Space Holiday in 2000. Virgin stocked about 5 copies of this and I could get in the car now and drive to where 3 of them copies are. Admittedly work might wonder where I was and it would be a drain on the petrol purely to prove a point. None the less. That single was fantastic and on my way to the next B album this morning I flicked past it.
This album as I said was done for me but someone long forgotten as an exchange for a Hefner disc I did for them, the sleeve is professionally printed and it was, even more than the split single, the catalyst for my love of Conor Oberst, in a purely platonic heterosexual way.
The compilation takes tracks from the albums prior to and including Fevers and Mirrors, with tracks from the odd EP thrown in for good measure. The Fevers and Mirrors tracks are the strongest, with the odd exception, drawing on The Calendar Hung Itself, Something Vague, Sunrise Sunset and The Center of The world, but the real joy is a track from Every Day and Every Night EP, and that track is A Perfect Sonnet. A song that has been known to reduce a grown man to tears and THE track that cemented my love of the band. The only reason I don’t give this compilation a ten is that it is a compilation, nothing more. The songs are strong enough as the mix draws on the best elements of Obersts Bright Eyes work prior to 2001. Stunning. 9 out of 10.



A Perfect Sonnet by Bright Eyes