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Eels Blinking Lights and Other Revelations Released in 2005 5.7/10 Styles Singer/Songwriter Pop Rock Song Highlights Trouble With Dreams Old Shit/New Shit If You See Natalie |
The group's sixth album, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations is the obligatory double-disc opus that's so easy to see coming from a band as overtly emotional as Eels. Mark Everett's (aka E) songwriting has never been particularly revelatory, but it was his honest, down-to-Earth style that made some of their prior efforts (especially 1998's Electro-Shock Blues) so enjoyable. The bad news is that on Blinking Lights, he seems to have traded off the album's generous length with some of the laziest songwriting of his career. Most noticably, the album is littered with incredibly slack rhyming couplets - the sort of unforgivable, last-ditch-effort rubbish that can drag a song right down, regardless of the quality of the remaining lyrics. For example, on "Lick Your Boots" E reels off the appallingly awkward "Every day / People find new ways / To get you down / All over town." This, in addition to being a really bad lyric, manages to negate the impact of the following line - the sly, eyebrow-raised afterthought of "But they're not fit to lick your boots." The whole production ends up wallowing in mediocrity - not terrible, but totally forgettable. Given that E's vocals are generally the focal point of each song, there's only a few of these lyrically poor tracks that manage to stay above water through solid instrumentation. It's important to note that there are a number of decent tracks here, including the pleasant two-part title-track, "Trouble With Dreams," "Going Fetal," "Old Shit/New Shit" and "If You See Natalie," several of which provide excellent instrumentation (some of the best and most ambitious from the group thus far), coupled with above-average lyrics. As is the case with most double-albums, however, these highlights only reinforce the suspicion that Blinking Lights and Other Revelations could've been a great album if the dead wood had been cut away, leaving just a single disc of the best material. As it stands, it feels bloated and poorly planned. Disappointing. |