• Artist: Eels
• Flags: Contains explicit content, Lyrics are included with the album
• Rating:
• Styles: Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock

Review

On 2003's Shootenanny!, Eels frontman and songwriter Mark Oliver Everett seemed to approach his work with fresh ears. He cut through his own trademark lyric and production excesses (very evident on the wonderfully messy and rocked-up Souljacker) and came up with an offering of quirky, sparking tunes that were shot through with American roots music and his trademark power pop hooks, while never compromising his stubbornly iconoclastic way of looking at the world. The same cannot be said for Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. Over 90 minutes and 33 songs, E opens his own, personal Pandora's Box and lets everything out musically, lyrically, and emotionally. This is the most searingly personal album E and his ad hoc stable of cohorts have recorded since Electro-Shock Blues -- though it's not as unremittingly dark. The handsomely designed double digipack is adorned with familial photographs -- including a cover shot of his mother as a child. Strings, brass, tinkling bells, and gauzy layers of sonic textures stream through these haphazard songs. In fact, despite the appearance of family, childhood, changing times, and other concerns of personal narrative, Blinking Lights is not a unified album; its tunes are gathered seemingly willy-nilly conceptually. No matter; it is E's world-weary voice that holds the disparate parts of the album together in a loose, soft web that envelopes him and the listener. It sits dead center, allowing the tensions, textures, and moods to grip and release him at will. He expresses it all honestly, without immersion or unnecessary put-on detachment. It is his voice that gives the record a type of spiritual quality, one that seems to gauge lessons learned -- either with acceptance or rejection -- from the various truths revealed. Family and history are woven together over the entirety to create not only introspection but a sense of time's slippage, emotional and physical displacement, and grief that is offset in places by poignant humor.

Disc one's standouts include the glorious "Railroad Man," a country-ish lament for that quickly disappearing way of life, while "Son of a Bitch," with its elegant saxophones, weepy pedal steel, and stately pace, offsets the painful revelation of the protagonist, "Going Fetal," a new dance tune (à la the Twist) features a vocal sample by Tom Waits and a faux, live rave-up setting fueled completely by a loopy Wurlitzer and a lyric that expresses with true irony the perceived joy of escape. "Mother Mary" is a stomping organ and rhythm-driven track that references reggae and carnival music. Its subject matter is offset by the musical attack and the eerie sound of an empty playground swing weaving its way through the mix. The second disc begins with the elegiac yet shimmering "Dust of Ages," which feels like a demo from Peter Gabriel's second album. "I'm Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart" is gem-like pop/rock balladry, while "Dusk: A Peach in the Orchard" -- co-written with the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian -- is a modern folk song that comes from the broken heart of memory, and could have been written during the Civil War era. R.E.M.'s Peter Buck co-wrote and performs on the ironic "To Lick Your Boots." The set closes with the bittersweet personal testament "Things the Grandchildren Should Know." It's unfocused and leaky lyrically, but it gets to emotional places most songwriters only dream of. Blinking Lights and Other Revelations is blessed because of -- not in spite of -- its excesses. It's not like anything else out there right now. It makes no apologies, it's shaky in places, and there are cuts that don't seemingly belong on either disc but fit within the context of the album as a whole. It feels like E and his collaborators have made an honest to goodness indie rock record, one that is immediate yet whose depths cannot be fathomed immediately. It's unwieldy, too long, irritating in some places, graceful in others, and sometimes clumsy. But it is utterly original and startlingly beautiful. At this juncture, records like this are almost museum pieces, mistakenly and cynically written off to the delusions of pop grandeur of earlier eras. Thank goodness rock music as we once knew it still exists in the minds and hearts of some of our more perceptive artists. E is one of them; he put everything into making Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, and the payoff is that it shows. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Tracks

CD 1

Track Title	iTunes	Composers	Performers	Time
Theme from Blinking Lights		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(1:44)
From Which I Came/A Magic World	...	Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:13)
Son of a Bitch		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:27)
Blinking Lights (For Me)		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:01)
Trouble With Dreams		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(4:33)
Marie Floating Over the Backyard		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:03)
Suicide Life		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:41)
In the Yard, Behind the Church		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(4:05)
Railroad Man		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(4:16)
The Other Shoe		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:32)
Last Time We Spoke		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:22)
Mother Mary		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:21)
Going Fetal		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:21)
Understanding Salesmen	...	Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:43)
Theme for a Pretty Girl That Makes You Believe God Exists		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:06)
Checkout Blues		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:27)
Blinking Lights (For You)		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(1:59)

CD 2

Track Title	iTunes	Composers	Performers	Time
Dust of Ages		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:21)
Old Shit/New Shit	...	Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:17)
Bride of Theme from Blinking Lights		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(1:52)
Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:02)
I'm Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:56)
To Lick Your Boots		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:30)
If You See Natalie		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:41)
Sweet Li'l Thing		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:27)
Dusk: A Peach in the Orchard		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(1:17)
Whatever Happened to Soy Bomb		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:26)
Ugly Love		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:57)
God's Silence		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(1:26)
Losing Streak		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(2:52)
Last Days of My Bitter Heart		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(1:35)
The Stars Shine in the Sky Tonight		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(3:31)
Things the Grandchildren Should Know		Mark Oliver Everett	Eels	(5:22)

Credits

Jim Jacobsen (Engineer), Jim Jacobsen (Performer), Jim Jacobsen (Horn Arrangements), Jim Jacobsen (String Arrangements), Jim Jacobsen (Mixing), John Sebastian (Performer), Tom Waits (Performer), Michael Aarvold (Engineer), Michael Aarvold (Mixing), Peter Buck (Performer), Joe Gore (Performer), Dan Hersch (Mastering), Jim Lang (Conductor), Jim Lang (Programming), Jim Lang (Engineer), Jim Lang (Performer), Jim Lang (Horn Arrangements), Jim Lang (String Arrangements), Jim Lang (Mixing), Jim Lang (Wind Arrangements), Bill Liston (Performer), Andy Martin (Performer), Dick Mitchell (Performer), Gerri Sutyak (Performer), Gerri Sutyak (Horn Arrangements), Gerri Sutyak (String Arrangements), Joseph Meyer (Performer), Wally Gagel (Performer), Sean Coleman (Photography), Eels (Main Performer), Francesca Restrepo (Design), Wayne Bergeron (Performer), Dan Savant (Contractor), Ryan Boesch (Programming), Ryan Boesch (Engineer), Ryan Boesch (Mixing), Probyn Gregory (Performer), Probyn Gregory (Horn Arrangements), Probyn Gregory (String Arrangements), Adam Olmsted (Assistant), Greg Collins (Engineer), Greg Collins (Mixing), Todd M. Simon (Performer), Michael Valerio (Performer), Dan Pinder (Engineer), Dan Pinder (Mixing), Ludvig Girdland (Performer), Mark Oliver Everett (Producer), Matt DeMerritt (Performer), David Hlebo (Performer), David Hlebo (Horn Arrangements), David Hlebo (String Arrangements), Puddin And Butch (Performer)

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