Eels – Eels Time! (2024) – LOST LITTLE CLASSICS

I have been meaning to write something about Mark Oliver Everett, aka E, and his Eels for some time now. But my thoughts invariably get swallowed up by other thoughts, which in turn get swallowed up by everyday life, and so they disappear into the ether until they return to my brain, to be swallowed up again more often than I would like. Ad infinitum.

But today, while I was doing one of the many tasks of my daily life, I remembered that last month I listened to E's latest album, released last June, two or three times, and I put it back on as I write these few words. Ladies and gentlemen, here we go. Eels time!.

First of all, and without any reason to do so, I will say that my favorite albums from Eels' loooong discography are – most days – the first two, Beaultiful freak (1995) e Electro-Shock blues (1998), but I chose to spin Eels time! around here because I think it's incredible that a guy remains so faithful to what he is and does for so long.

Far from passing fads, E keeps his music simple and confessional, alternating between melancholic, almost-folk ballads and lively, yet cynical/sarcastic rock songs. In the case of this album, there are more ballads than rock songs, but everything is still full of melancholy, cynicism and sarcasm; the level of disenchantment of the guy today is equal or greater than at the time of “Novocaine for the soul”, even though he recently survived surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm. Should he be happy celebrating with an upbeat album? Maybe, but not in this case. Thank goodness (laughs).

3 decades later the man continues to sing with his hoarse and lazy voice about how the world is, in general, a big piece of shit. Even though at the end, in “Let's get lucky”, he sings:

‘What a mess
I gotta guess
That it’s only getting worse
I plow ahead
The motor’s dead
Or it’s stuck in reverse
It’s a bummer
But it’s still summer
It would be a shame
To waste a day like this
Let’s be lucky
Scraping by
Had to try
Anything for a buck
Climb out of bed
And look ahead
Sometimes you gotta make your own luck
Stomp and cheer
Well, I’m still here
And you’re not gonna see me
Throw away a day like this
Let’s be lucky’.

In other words, step on the shit and go further!

Thank you, E! Our identification, like your songs, remains the same in these 30 years.

No spotifuck