Bright Eyes have released a new single, “One and Done,” from their forthcoming album. The album, which will also include previously released tracks “Persona Non Grata” and “Forced Convalescence,” will be released via Dead Oceans, which Bright Eyes joined in February of this year. Although the band’s members have pursued their own artistic visions since the release of their last album in 2011, the upcoming album, which has yet to be officially announced, will mark the end of the band’s nine-year hiatus.
Oberst has a knack for the prophetic: Although “One and Done” was both written and produced before COVID-19, its post-apocalyptic portrait of a civilization on the brink of collapse feels eerily appropriate: “This whole town looks empty but we knew it wouldn’t last / Behind bulletproof windows they’re still wiring the cash / Whatever they could scrape up, whatever that they had / There’s a lot of mouths to feed through this famine,” Obserst sings. The song’s instrumentals, including a feature from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea on bass, give the track a graver atmosphere, an orchestra of strings and ethereal keyboard swelling beneath the vocals. Although not created within this moment, the song is certainly a haunting meditation on it.
Listen to “One and Done” below:
