EELS is a band that is known for it’s beautiful and melancholic lyrics and instrumentation which originate from the songwriting mastery of the band’s front man Mark Oliver Everett who is perhaps better known as “E”. E has experienced more than his fair share of tragedy, having lost his sister and mother due to suicide and cancer. So naturally his songs end up on the darker end of the spectrum, but often times there’s a spark of optimism and light at the end of the tunnel in each of the songs that he hand crafts. For those of you still not sold on the guy, he kind of sounds like Beck channeling Tom Waits.
EEL's Album "End Times" Released January 19th 2010
In the tradition of other EELS releases, E once again channels a dark time in his life into guitar strums and prose, this time however it’s about his recent divorce. With this in mind, most of the songs are about unrequited love and the promise of relationships and how they can ultimately end up not working out. From the somber opening of “In the Beginning” it’s pretty clear this isn’t going to be an album that you give to your friend recovering from a recent breakup. That is unless you want to make them cry. That’s not to say that there aren’t a few injections of fun despite such heavy subject matter. “Gone Man Gone” is one such injection, relying on the age old rock & roll trick of juxtaposing “women troubles” with some bluesy licks. For some reason, I’ve always thought that good rock & roll was perfect music for anything relating to NASA and missions in outer space, for this I blame David Bowie. Anyway “Gone Man Gone” is a track that fits perfectly in this category for me right next to Spoon’s “Take a Walk”, which would ,naturally, soundtrack a space walk.
Meanwhile back on Earth, E explores the melodrama that is usually exposed from nasty break ups. He sings about the end of the world, because to some people, that’s what the end of a relationship feels like. So what is there left to do if the end of the world is upon us? The answer to that is the question: “What can you trade in for your earthly existence?” This is the question that E explores on the twangy “Paradise Blues” by trying to understand a suicide bomber. His most empathic line being “It’s kind of hard to blame somebody for going to a better place”. After the dust settles from that track, E uses a hazy harmonica to entice you to listen to the life he has and the life that he pines for. Once the listener is relaxed, he then releases the angriest track of the album, “Unhinged”, which entails how his significant other changed in his eyes over the course of his divorce. Following this, E employs his trademark ability to write wistful and optimistic tunes that act as a salve to the recently heartbroken on the remaining tracks and concluding with the appropriately titled “On My Feet” because of its message of the pain of moving on.
Overall, “End Times” delivers exactly what it promises: a bleak look at life – post relationship. The album has an intimate feeling that is authentic and you can’t help but but be affected emotionally. Even if the album is mostly a downer, it’s excellently arranged and written, and if nothing else it is an extremely sobering approach to the overused subject matter of the lovelorn.
