Fats Waller declared a long time ago that he was gonna sit right down and write himself a letter, and ninety or so years later, Mark ‘E’ Everett has done just the same thing by way of an introduction to Eels Time!, the band’s fifteenth album.
It’s an unusual approach – most artists leave it to PR agencies – but in amongst some thoughts about the post-pandemic world Everett then drops the bombshell that since the last Eels record Extreme Witchcraft he’d undergone preventative open heart surgery, an event which would make anybody take stock of their life.
Eels Time! is inevitably then a personal record, although the singer has been saying what he sees and feels ever since his debut Beautiful Freak arrived in the mid-nineties. It’s a showcase for both the simple – opener Time’s beatific strum, Sweet Smile – and the deeper threads of Goldy and Haunted Hero. Everett displays throughout the accumulated wisdom of never straying too far from what he does best, but the early indications are that the Pet Sounds vibes of If I’m Gonna Go Anywhere could be a notable late career peak. Thankfully we can expect more correspondence from him in the future.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 