The atmosphere of 2016’s Ruminations—stripped-back, vulnerable, raw—seemed of a piece with a record marked by Conor Oberst’s convalescence in his Nebraskan hometown. So it’s a surprise to learn that the expansive full band accompaniment of this companion album actually returns those songs to their intended form. Bolstered by seven new tracks and radiating whiskey-drenched bonhomie (see the rowdy honky tonk of “Napalm”), Salutations thrillingly trades isolation for the cathartic communion of friends crowded around a piano.
More By Conor Oberst
- EL VY
- Father John Misty
- Bon Iver
- The Shins
- Eleanor Friedberger
- Vampire Weekend
- The National