Highlights: Bombs Away, On The Robes, The Turnaround, True
Original
Frustrating though it
may be, you do get tired of Eels. Not sick – just tired. Slightly bored. In
fact, only the most loyal Mark Everett fan would feel genuinely excited about a
new Eels album. The song remains the same, the changes are nonexistent, but
it’s not only that: the absolute worst thing is that you can actually predict
the quality of the whole thing. So when I finally sat down to listen to Wonderful, Glorious, I knew exactly what
I would get: a worthy, well-written, rough-beautiful album I would give a seven
to.
Secretly hoping for an
unlikely revelation, that was what I got. If I were to compare Wonderful, Glorious to a past Eels
release, I’d compare it to 2001’s Souljacker.
The lovely-gruff ratio may have been different, but the contrast it produced
was basically the same. Each album is hardly a classic even by Eels’
non-classic standard, but each album includes one song that is among Everett’s
best ever. “True Original” has no magnetic power of “Woman Driving, Man
Sleeping”, but it is nonetheless a heartbreaking ballad Mark can do so
effortlessly well.
In fact, it’s these
ballads that keep Wonderful, Glorious
from being a letdown. Stuff like “On The Robes” and “The Turnaround”:
gorgeous, melodic tunes with powerful vocal hooks. But then you’d also have to
sit through decent, by-the-numbers Eels rockers, like, say, “Kinda Fuzzy”. Or,
worse, “Peach Blossom”, which is where ‘rough’ turns into ‘ugly’. So it’s not
accidental that the best thing about the latter track is that brief, pretty
guitar break you get at around 1:15.
Any Eels fan would find
much comfort in Wonderful, Glorious, while the rest of the world would probably feel what I felt: this is a very good album written by a songwriter who still has ‘it’, but
whose ‘it’ terribly lacks a spark. I enjoyed it, but I really don’t want
another album like this. Having said that, one never knows.
7/10
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