Conor Oberst's new album debuts May 20, but NPR is streaming it now, free

Photo: Butch Hogan

Tom Moon seems to really like the new album by Omaha's Conor Oberst, Upside Down Mountain, and we can see why.
     Here's his precis of You Are Your Mother's Child:

Here we have a tired, heartstring-tugging trope from the 1970s [Harry Chapin's Cat's In The Cradle] resurrected as something lucid and disarmingly poignant. Something that can sneak right inside the most cynical heart and melt the layers.

More from Moon's critical Valentine:

On the surface, the riffing horns and striding beats of "Hundreds of Ways" radiate a kind of parade-day joviality. Get inside the song, though, and you realize Oberst is talking about what it means to contend with dark, possibly unwelcome memories when everyone else seems to be sashaying through life. The very next track, "Artifact #1," delves further into the muddy pools and quagmires of memory, examining what it means to hold onto the last glimmer of a great and vanished love. It's a stunning one-two punch, one of those rare album moments where two works grow more profound as a result of their proximity to each other.

 The album's track list, streaming now at NPR's First Listen:

Time Forgot
Zigzagging Toward The Light
Hundreds of Ways
Artifact #1
Lonely At The Top
Enola Gay
Double Life
Kick
Night At Lake Unknown
You Are Your Mother's Child
Governor's Ball
Desert Island Questionnaire
Common Knowledge