Sit at the Kids Table. Go to prom. Try a new SSRI. Deface a mural. Flip

the mattress. Help a bird. Dissociate. Last vacation.These landmark occasions are inscribed on the board-game-inspiredcover of the new Bright Eyes EP, Kids Table. And therein lies thechiaroscuro of Bright Eyes’ music, perpetually teetering betweenrogue optimism and pragmatic despair. Following the band’s 2024visceral and hook-filled Five Dice, All Threes, the new EP exists as botha partner-in-crime to that album, and a self-contained world all of it’sown.While many of these new songs emerged from the same recordingsessions at Omaha’s ARC Studios as Five Dice, they didn’t all quite fitthe concise cohesion of that album. So it was always the plan ofConor Oberst, Mike Mogis, and Nate Walcott to find another seat forthese outliers at the proverbial kids table, “eaten off the ironing boardlike we did at our big family holidays,” jokes Oberst, in a nod to theEP’s cover art.“Kids Table” and “Dyslexic Palindrome” both feature Hurray For TheRiff Raff’s Alynda Segarra, a continued creative partnership followingthe two bands’ recent tours together and viral live version of BrightEyes fan-favorite, “Lua.” And while a Bright Eyes ska song was likelynot on this year’s bingo card (or game board), “1st World Blues,”cowritten with Alex Orange Drink (So So Glos), makes a case for athird wave of the genre, with it’s biting takedown of contemporaryAmerican civilization decline, propelled by gang vocals and aninfectious off-beat rhythm.Cultural references both high and low-brow pepper the EP –namechecking everyone from Salman Rushdie, Joe Strummer, andCandace Bergen in “Victory City” and Shakespeare, Guy Fawkes, andMrs. Peacock from the classic boardgame ‘Clue’ in “Shakespeare In ANutshell.”But it’s the cover of Lucinda Williams’ 1980 track “Sharp CuttingWings (Song For A Poet)” that is really the heart of this collection.Oberst and Williams share a clear musical commonality, both expertsat weaving together melancholy and hope. And in fact, following amedical emergency in 2024 when Oberst was battling vocal problems– it was the first thing he wanted to sing after his illness, once he wasable to use his voice again. “This was the song I felt like singing,” saysOberst, “I’ve just always loved it.” It was a last-minute addition to theEP that ultimately ties it all together, it’s cautious optimism offering aglimmer of light in the shadows of the collection, the shadows of afraying American dream, and the shadows cast across a family dinnerat the kids table.