Eels - End Times
Rating
RIYL
Damien RiceBob Dylan
Laura Marling
Release Date
01/19/2010
Label
Vagrant RecordsTracklist
1. "The Beginning" – 2:162. "Gone Man" – 2:59
3. "In My Younger Days" – 3:25
4. "Mansions of Los Feliz" – 2:49
5. "A Line in the Dirt" – 3:30
6. "End Times" – 2:58
7. "Apple Trees" – 0:40
8. "Paradise Blues" – 3:03
9. "Nowadays" – 3:09
10. "Unhinged" – 2:26
11. "High and Lonesome" – 1:07
12. "I Need a Mother" – 2:39
13. "Little Bird" – 2:34
14. "On My Feet" – 6:21
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EELS, eels. To have a specific typeface of how you want your name as an artist presented has a certain personality about it, as if the artist is saying, “This is exactly who I am, get it right.” And after 18 years and the release of 8 albums, a greatest hits volume, an autobiography and a documentary series, EELS frontman Mark Oliver Everett has earned that distinction.
Early 2010 saw the release of their 8th album, End Times, which seems to mark Everett’s resignation to desperation, loss and heartbreak. Having lost his father to a heart attack, his sister to suicide and his mother to cancer, as well as a cousin in the 2001 American terror attacks, his career has been littered with tragedy and his music has reflected that. End Times delves into subjects that have been covered so widely by so many artists, but with one key ingredient that is often missing: experience, and maybe a bit too much of it.
The opening track speaks of a new relationship that can’t yet see failure, and it seems to come from a more optimistic place, one which perhaps Everett only rarely ventures. From here upbeat “Gone Man” misleads, an edgy quick paced blues riff that is summarized in one of the final verses, “I never thought that I should quit / all that stupid crazy shit / that I do in the name of / keeping good things away / the epitaph scratched upon my stone / here lies a man who just wants to be left alone.”
The album is not musically inventive, though it does not pretend to be. Standard blues progressions of 12 bar riffs host the emotional strength in the album that is showcased through the lyrics. Songs like “Gone Man”, “Paradise Blues” and “Unhinged” fracture, but yet strengthen, the album with breaks in the voice and feedback through the guitar, departing from the minor key acoustic ballads like the title track, “A Line in the Dirt”, and the regressive reflection “In My Younger Days”.
“In My Younger Days” ambiguously rolls through another lost love story by relating that, “In my younger days / I would’ve just chalked it up / as part of my ongoing education / but I’ve had enough / been through some stuff / and I don’t need any more misery / to teach me what I should be / I just need you back.”
I could go on about the brilliance in the poetry of the lyrics and the simplicity of the musical accompaniment, such as the opening of “A Line in the Dirt” which states, “She’s locked herself in the bathroom / again / so I’m pissing in the yard,” but you can hear that for yourself when you go and buy the album. Go now, if you need empathy or if you need some suffering of your own to hold on to, End Times will deliver.
--Sandy Powell
Comments
Boston
I love "Gone Man" and have been a huge Eels fan since there first album. I think all their music is starting to sound very similar when E writes sad songs... but when he writes the more rockin' upbeat ones he continues to innovate...
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