(2020) Eels - Earth to Dora


Review:
Nearly a quarter of a century after Eels – the brainchild of Mark Oliver Everett (aka E) featuring a revolving group of fellow musicians – became the poster band for alternative rock misfits with debut single ‘Novocaine for the Soul’, they’ve returned with this 13th studio album. An enigmatic eccentric who can be as humorously whimsical as he can be suicidally depressing, Everett once again weaves his way skilfully between those two extremes. Some songs here, namely ‘Are You Fucking Your Ex’ – a dour, melancholy ode offset only by its that’s-not-really-funny chorus – do both at once, but on the whole, it’s one or the other. The hauntingly fragile ‘Of Unsent Letters’ – which recalls the musically morbid, haunted atmosphere of 1998’s Electro-Shock Blues – and the quiet devastation of spoken word confessional OK – an honest song contemplating, though thankfully not committing, suicide – fit squarely in the depressive category, while the dreamy sweetness of opener Anything For Boo, Are We Alright Again? and the title track are anything but downbeat. In fact, the latter is more of a children’s ditty, albeit with some muted but surreal existentialism thrown in. That, of course, is nothing new for Everett. His songs have always asked difficult questions in an accessible, touching way, and have been full of characters struggling in a world they don’t feel like they belong to. What’s always made Everett’s songs stand out, though, is that that world always feels slightly unreal. That’s probably because his own life has often seemed that way. Everett’s father, Hugh Everett III, came up with the “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum physics – essentially, the idea that there are a potentially infinite number of parallel universes. In 1982, at the age of 51, he suffered a heart attack at home. It was a 19-year-old E that found his body. Add to that the suicide of his sister in 1996 and his mother’s death from cancer in 1998, and you have the tip of the iceberg of a life that probably wouldn’t be believable for a character in a novel or a movie. It’s not all been doom and gloom, though. Everett wrote a memoir, published in 2008, entitled Things the Grandchildren Should Know. It was a deliberately ironic title for someone who didn’t ever think he’d have children, but in 2017, at the age of 54, he became a father for the first time. The relationship didn’t last – Everett got divorced for a second time before his son was born – but it’s nevertheless an unexpectedly uplifting twist in the tale of his life. To say you can hear the effect of that in these 12 songs would be a stretch. For a start, even the most dour and depressing Eels records have had glimmers of light and hope in them, and 2018’s record, The Deconstruction, was Everett’s first set of songs written as a dad. Yet there is a distinct sense of positivity that, even in its darkest moments, runs through this record. These days, Eels songs sound like Eels songs, rather than the pioneering idiosyncrasies of the early days. That’s been the case for a number of years now, but that’s not a criticism. Rather, it’s a commentary on how clearly defined the Eels sound has become, despite the disparate array of songs and styles he’s capable of. They still sum up life’s triumphs and tragedies with aplomb and a wholesome wretchedness, and this record does so precisely and concisely. Earth to Dora re-establishes Everett as one of the finest and most distinctive songwriters today – one who can make sorrow sound joyful, but who also knows that, without sadness, happiness wouldn’t be the same experience.





Tracklist:
01 - Anything for Boo
02 - Are We Alright Again
03 - Who You Say You Are
04 - Earth to Dora
05 - Dark and Dramatic
06 - Are You Fucking Your Ex
07 - The Gentle Souls
08 - Of Unsent Letters
09 - I Got Hurt
10 - Ok
11 - Baby Let's Make It Real
12 - Waking Up


Media Report:
Genre: indie-rock
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits