Artist: The Eels
Album: Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
Label: Vagrant Records
Reviewed By: Justin Brinker
In 1996, there was one band that managed to help me break away from my intense obsession with Weezer’s “Pinkerton”, that band was the Eels. “Beautiful Freak” burst on the scene with the single “Novocain for the Soul” and soon Mark Everett had the world singing along with his gruff vocals anthems of loss and pain. The Eel’s discography over the past nine years has catalogued the tumultuous trials that have plagued Everett. From the sophomore brilliance of “Electro-Shock Blues” to the disjointed “Souljacker” each release possessed such candor. The Eel’s 6th release “Blinking Lights and Other Revelations” draws from 1998’s “Electro-Shock Blues” as a sequel, and is a two disc composition about one person: God.
The sprawling thirty-three-track opus begins with the instrumental “Theme From Blinking Lights” and sets the listener on an autobiographical journey of Everett’s life. Disc one covers E’s entrance into the world, with the lush “From Which I Came/A Magical World” replete with strings, acoustic guitar, and vocal effect E introduces us to the entrance “Ten pounds and a head of hair, came into without a care what they thought were cries were little laughs only looking forward moving fast the little bundle had arrived and I was happy to be alive.” “Son of a *****” chronicles E’s childhood with a lazy jazzy backdrop with lines like “Mother couldn’t love me but that didn’t stop me from liking her, she was my mom and I was no son of a ***** Daddy was a drunk a most unpleasant man asleep on the floor just inside the door, with a smile underneath his red nose.” The piano driven “Suicide Life” and “In the Yard Behind the Church” beautifully carry the momentum of the first disc opening the door for the country tinged “Railroad Man.” The waltz-like “Last Time We Spoke” features an appearance by E’s dog, then the album takes a departure from the acoustic piano driven ballads with the bass driven “Mother Mary” and the danceable “Going Fetal.” It heads back down the acoustic trail with the striking string laden “Understanding Salesman” while Everett bemoans, “Daddy don’t let me down this time I’m all alone inside my mind.” Disc one closes quietly with the acoustic driven instrumental “Blinking Lights (For You).”
“Dust Of Ages” makes a declaration as E sings, “This is the day that I give myself up cold. Bloodshot and trembling a new day has begun” over the simple instrumentation of a string effect. The surf rock anthem “Old ****/New ****” bursts out of nowhere while the soulful upbeat “Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living) follows right behind and finds Everett shouting “Just saw the sunrise over the hill never gave me much of a thrill but hey man now I’m really living.” The acoustic balladry sets back in with “I’m Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn’t Break Your Heart.” The piano driven “If You See Natalie” quiets things back down, while the ethereal “Sweet Li’l Thing” employs a choir of voices in the background along with keys, as Everett softly sings. “Ugly Love” encapsulates what so many love about the Eels with the simple piano instrumentation setting the scenery for Everett to croon such lines like, “My kind of love is an ugly love, but it’s real and it lasts a long, long time” and it leaves the lonely feeling like they have found a friend or the unloved feeling as if there is still someone out there who understands. The happy “Losing Streak” finds a hopeful Everett boasting, “Looking up its looking like my losing streak is finally done.” The album closes with “Things the Grandchildren Should Know” and could not be a more perfect ending to this sprawling journey that one was just taken on.
“Blinking Lights and Other Revelations” is the Eels most complete work to date. This extensive piece is E at his most personal and vulnerable and that is hard to believe after witnessing the brilliant but extremely brooding “Electro-Shock Blues.” There are moments on the first disc that may seem incoherent where some songs seem a bit out of place, but each song paints a better picture of the concept the album is trying to portray as a whole. Thus, the incoherent moments are seen as necessary instead of excessive. Ironically enough out of the thirty-three songs twenty of them clock in at less than three minutes, making the albums move swiftly along. Over seven years in the making Everett has compiled a beautiful cathartic voyage for all to enjoy.
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