Wonderful, Glorious

What lies behind E

For the absolute majority of people, the letter E is nothing, but the fifth letter in the English alphabet. But this is not how the American band Eels fans see it, because E for them is first and foremost the stage name of the band’s leader Mark Everett, and only then comes the rest. However, this musical project is not an ensemble in its full meaning, since Mark is the only original and constant participant here, the author of all the material. Creative resources of this music mastermind have never been an issue: the Eels discography has ten albums by now, each successful in its own way. Everett seems to be able to write songs endlessly: that is how many ideas he extracts from his own life where a lot of disastrous things have happened. Well, we will dwell on the freshest release, the CD called Wonderful, Glorious. The main question, of course, is: will mister E again offer us something that we have not heard him performing before?

The tenth album must be a special album

Number ten signifying the chronological position of Wonderful, Glorious in the Eels discography, no doubt, automatically adds extra requirements to this record: an album with this big mark must give you something special. The start of Wonderful, Glorious in shape of Bomb Away will be to some extent a surprise for those who have got used to the melancholy of Mark Everett’s previous efforts. But this track is all about rustling and rumbling of electric guitar and vocalist’s decisive, straight-in-your-face statements. The result is a good pop-rock to delight big crowds. Feeling Kinda Fuzzy catches up the opener’s high tempo, and throughout the album, Everett, putting aside all his sadness and grief, will resort to this format. These tracks deliver a sensation of original vibe you can feel during your first rehearsals in cellars, cheap demo-recordings in father’s garage. After the brooding Accident Prone, leaving you same space for relaxation, follows, arguably, Eels heaviest piece in its history, Peach Blossom, with drums which seems furious for a band like that. Amazingly, the next song is one of the record’s calmest and most touching ones, On The Ropes, with vocal parts as if borrowed from country.

Wonderful, Glorious prepares Eels for a new kind of material?

In some sense, Wonderful, Glorious stops developing somewhere in the middle of the set, because the other most interesting tracks are just as energetic and cheerful as the ones in the first half, like Stock Together, and Open My Present. Among those with a lower tempo, one would like I Am Building A Shrine, a psychedelic painting where the atmosphere is more powerful than the melody. Traditionally, Mark concludes Wonderful, Glorious in an optimistic manner, with the self-titled song featuring rather a plain guitar line and solid intense rhythm. One can say that some of the new record’s song will sink in the shadow of its highlights, but Eels fans will not pay much attention to this fact. What is more important to them is that the general mood of Wonderful, Glorious makes it different from the ensemble’s latest efforts filled with grayness, dullness and sadness. Being an astonishing song-writer, Everett all of a sudden demonstrated his skill to write opposite material, cheerful rock songs which either make you sing along or dance till you drop.