Record Reviews
Eels New Release: End Times
Colm McAuliffe :: Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 9:30 am
āCrazy guy with a matted beard, standing on the corner.. she is gone now, seems like end times are hereā.
E for Everett, Eels and now, End Times, Mark Everettās ādivorceā album where he merges the personal and the political, equating his personal loss with the world losing its integrity. 1998ās Electro-Shock Blues managed to capture the deaths of Eās family members quite captivatingly, so can he repeat the trick for the death of a relationship?
Yes, he can. E is undoubtedly well-versed in the art of crafting a morose pop tune or two but End Times sees the ācrazy guy with a matted beardā drastically stripping down his sound as the album was self-recorded on a four-track, mainly in his own basement. This results in a markedly more mature release, both musically and lyrically, as E admits āin my younger days, this wouldnāt have been so hard, I wouldāve just shrugged it off, but now itās toughā.
The album artwork depicts a maudlin, scruffy, lonesome figure, guitar in tow which sets the scene for the album and Eās hopelessly heartbroken accounts veer from sepia-toned nostalgia (āApple Treesā) to vitriol (āParadise Bluesā) as he imagines his former lover as a suicide bomber, recklessly on her way to a ābetter placeā.
This may sound like a relentlessy downbeat, repetitive account of something we have all been through but Eās knack for succinct lyrical gems pulls him through to the end where some form of emotional redemption may not be far off - the albumās closing line is āI just gotta get back on my feetā.
End Times, like itās creator, is crestfallen and sorrowful but eloquent in itās depiction of his sadness and that of the wider world. While certainly not an easy listen, we can only, as E states in āGone Manā, ātake small comfort in a dying worldā¦ Iām not the only one whoās feeling this painā.
