This album is great for any Bright Eyes fan.I haven't been for a long time but well enough to know that they're awesome.The first Bright Eyes cd I ever got was the "LUA" ep.I loved Well Whiskey,and True Blue.After that I got Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and liked it. Those are the only two I had before I got "Letting off the happiness" for my birthday. I think its the peak of Bright Eyes albums.I hope you get it and enjoy it.

Conor's first great album. This lo-fi CD finds Conor at the ripe age of 18 performing songs written laden with the frustration of your usual teenage. Conor dosen't take the usual "I want sympathy" root however. The only thing emo about him is his shrieking often off-key voice. Instead Conor writes inteligent songs full of imagery and metaphors about his struggle with finding enjoyment in this life.

His depression is evident across the entire album but never is it more startling or brilliantly exressed than in the opening number, 'If Winter Ends', a track that uses winter as a metaphor for depression and spring as one for life. The song is about how he wants to escape from the bell jar that hangs over his life. The track opens with a drone layered with voices. Around the 40 secong mark the guitar cuts in. He sings "I dreamt of a fever, one that would cure of of this cold winter set heart..." He keeps going because he knows if he can just get away "the perfect spring is waiting somewhere." He finally pleads "just take me there."

The rest of the album continues in this dark, hopeless way. Track two detailing what I beleive to be a true story about his brother dying in a bathtub. By track 4 though, he begins to analyse his problems, not just cry about them.

Expect an album that will be difficult but will be rewarding. Some of Conor's best songs are her (If Winter Ends, The Difference in the Shades, Pull My Hair). Even with all the hopelessness, Conor manages to present us with a compelling, fun, and cool CD.

what i said then: "i think this one is not quite so good as fevers and mirrors, which is a 19 year-old's masterpiece. he did this one when he was 17; not bad at all. it's good, but improvements were to come in the form of better lyrics and cleaner production."

not so sure about that anymore...while there is some great poetry on fevers, i don't think i've heard anything of his equal "june on the west coast" from this album. absolutely gorgeous love song. and the scratchy production here fits his strangled voice, better, too. makes his whining less so. in time, this album will be regarded as a naive masterpiece, a miracle of talent and desire and desperation.