So Conor Oberst is going solo, eh? What, because he wasn’t able to fully indulge himself in Bright Eyes?!

Whatever. While most artists reserve their woebegone introspection for their solo careers, Oberst gets it backwards for the most part on his new self-titled release. The disc’s folksy alt-country songs tend to focus less on Oberst’s own navel (or his debilitating neuroses, or the beautifully tragic melodrama of his poor-little-rich-boy life) and more on the non-Conor world around him. Even the self-referential exceptions — for example, “I Don’t Want to Die (In the Hospital)” — tend to have a levity previously missing from Oberst’s musical (not to mention vocal) palette.

You can read more thoughts on the CD in this week’s Friday Extra section of The Tampa Tribune, or on TBOextra.com.

“Danny Callahan,” the disc’s first single, takes its name from a young boy who died of cancer (OK, so Oberst has lightened up a bit, but he’s not exactly Bobby McFerrin), and features a gracefully rollicking performance by the Mystic Valley Band, particularly Nate Walcott on the piano. It’s chicken soup for the honky-tonker’s soul.

Check it out here:

A track by Conor Oberst, courtesy of Merge:

Conor Oberst, “Danny Callahan” (from “Conor Oberst”) [mp3]