EEls - Wonderful, glorious

Eels

Wonderful, Glorious
Vagrant Records; 2013

3.4 out of 5

    Eels change their musical styles and band members more than most places change weather. I mainly enjoyed albums from from Electro-Shock Blues through Souljacker, and some tracks from earlier efforts, and of course "I Am The Messiah". This album has a blues/country rock feel to it that you can tell Mark Oliver has become incredibly comfortable with.
    The album opens with "Bombs Away", a strident declaration from E that he is tired of not being heard; he's going to "shake" and "rattle the house" and also stop "being a mouse". He's letting the bombs fall and blowing open the doors.
This album as a whole has E back at his best. Quirky, upbeat songwriting. Nice melodies with unusual chord progressions and a variety of songs from quiet, slower tunes to rockers; dynamic moods. Some of the other highlights are "On the Ropes", a pretty heart-felt ballad, The light-hearted(?) "Open Present" although E may be singing about some bad experience when he was young, & "Wonderful, Glorious", which has a nice Beatle-est feel to it. Comparing this record to E's back-catalogue, I would say as its as strong as "Blinking lights..". This is the bands 10th album and from what I hear I don't know if they plan on slowing down anytime soon. Do yourself and give these guys a listen if you haven't before. In fact you should start with their first album and listen to their evolution.

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