Customer Reviews

End Times

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was a late arrival to the Mark Everett fan club. My bad luck. Once in a while, you find an artist who speaks to you. Who seems to be like you in ways that are uncanny. When it comes to Everett, I can't help but think it's his ability to write from a very genuine place -- to strum the strings of our common humanity in an original way. End Times is no exception. Some of the songs take a little time to get your ears and head around, but the deep pleasures are well worth the effort. At under three minutes long, Little Bird is a profound elegy to lost love, with a striking, repeated line that's beautiful in its simplicity and delivery: "God damn. I miss that girl." I Need a Mother oozes late night, brutal honesty -- told like that last truth that finally emerges, but only after a tortuous relationship has left you a husk. Those are just two of the gems. End Times reminds me of two other things I love: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Beck's Sea Change. They're each different creatures, but they roam the same dark countryside where it's hard to tell whether you're seeing the slender threads of dawn or the final glimmer of dusk.

"Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss." (Nick Hornby - High Fidelity).

Mark Everett wasn't the most cheerful guy to begin with. Deaths of parents and siblings leave a mark and his music with the eels has always had a sad undertone. And don't expect anything new on `End Times'. Let's face it, even the title is depressing. The theme of the album is a divorce and the ensuing depression. Recorded mostly at home on a simple four-track the songs are simple and vintage E. Mostly just him strumming some chords on a guitar or playing them on a keyboard.

Starting in heaven he slowly spirals down into the phases that are part of breaking up, including locking yourself up in your house without much outside interaction ( the beautiful Mansion of Loz Feliz). They are emotions that we have all gone through, at one point he explains seeing a million trees at the side of the road and feeling just like one of them, but still feeling lonely. At least he has his Little Bird to talk to and we have the eels we can listen to, to let us know that even though we feel awful at times, there are millions more that feel the same. (from [...])

Sometimes EELS are up, sometimes they are down. Life has ups and downs. We have all felt like this at some point. An artist's duty is to reflect life. There's a reason this album is getting incredible reviews. It's great! My favorite EELS album since Electro Shock Blues.

I don't understand why some people don't like this record, personally, it blew me away. Maybe people are so commercialized, they don't know great music whan they hear it. I think it's one of the most immpressive records I've heard in a while, and I own 600+ of them. What blew me away the most is the songwriting, it's very much what great songwriting is about. I love the lo-fi minimalism, and E has pulled it off brilliantly here. So, if you don't like it, oh well, if you do, it's a must-have record.

Eels have decided to more than make up for their 4 year hiatus after "Blinking Lights" by gracing us with not just one, but two albums in 7 months. For other artists this would breed disaster (Ryan Adams, Joseph Arthur) but for eels it's just more great music.

I admit, it is his most depressing album since Electro Shock Blues but that's also what makes it great. It is dark and full of dispair...but there is also hope to be heard throughout. "Mansions of Los Feliz" is one of the best eels songs I've heard in a really long time. It reminds me of the best stuff from "Daisies of the Galaxy." Most of the songs are pretty short, with the longest song being the last song at 6:25, which is actually pretty long for an eels song.

I will also admit that he treads on familiar ground here. Some of the piano songs sound very similar to stuff he's written before, most notably is how much "A Line in the Dirt" sounds like "Manchester Girl." His other piano song, "I Need a Mohter" is the only song I wished he'd left off the album. These two songs prevent the album from getting more than 4 stars.

If you like eels' softer acoustic stuff, you'll like this album...if you like their more fuzzy rock sounding stuff, well that's on here too. In fact, my second favorite song on here is "Paradise Blues" which has a kind of Jim Noir sound to it.

I think it's interesting that when "Hombre Lobo" came out E was saying in interviews that he wanted to make an album that wasn't about him; an album removed from his personal issues; an album that wasn't autobiographical...I think these last two albums have been his most intimate albums since Electro Shock Blues. As with most works of fiction (Hombre Lobo) they tend to tell us more about the author than the characters.

Key Tracks: Mansions of Los Felix and Paradise Blues

You would have thought that E had purged all of his demons with 2005's "Blinking Lights and Other Revelations", a masterful double disc that was drenched in emotional honesty. Not so fast. Just when it seemed that E was taking a break from writing personal songs (see last year's Hombre Lobo), he and his band return with a beautifully bleak but ultimately hopeful "breakup" album. Inspired by E's divorce in 2005, this album has been likened to his "Blood on the Tracks". Indeed, the blood from his greiving heart is all over the 14 tracks of this release.

End Times is easily the most sparse album that the band have released to date. There is little polish on the songs collected here, and with the exception of The Mansions of Los Feliz and Paradise Blues, not a ton of hooks either. But don't worry, E's songwriting still shines. Nearly every song seems as though it has been ripped from Mark Everett's wounded heart. He provides some of his most emotionally raw lyrics to date such as when he achingly cries "I Need a Mother" or when he describes pushng his bed up against the window so it only has one side because it's a little less lonely that way. Elsewhere he identifies with the inane ramblings of a homeless man in the title track and relfects on how much easier it was to deal with a broken heart in his younger days.

Yet there is hope to be found in these tales of loss. E talks about getting back on his feet in the closing song and on another song he declares that he is fighting the hatred that is trying to consume him, even though it is getting stronger each day. These may sound like very optimistic statements, but they speak volumes about E's willingness to keep going in spite of overwheliming odds. That may be the most resonant theme that emerges from this seemingly despair filled collecton. There is always hope, but sometimes you have to want to find it. Well put, indeed.

C'mon EELS. You can do better.

There may be 14 tracks on "End Times" but about every other song sounds exactly the same. You have to listen to each song repeatedly by itself about 6 times before finding the subtle differences between that song and the one before it. "End Times" feels more like an EP that Mark Everett decided to extend by replicating some of the songs and simply tweaking the chords/lyrics. I find it hard to believe that after the less-than-stellar reviews of their last album "Hombre Lobo", the EELS didn't just dig into their leftover recording stash and quickly come up with some new songs to make a whole new album.

Everett said leading up to "End Times" that it would be darker than "Hombre Lobo" and more in line with the superb yet also very somber "Electro Shock Blues" so we all knew to expect the melancholy, trademark lyrics the EELS are truly known for. But the difference between "End Times" and past dark material like "Electro Shock Blues" is that "Electro Shock Blues" was indeed slow, yet creative and interesting. Songs like 'PS You Rock My World' and 'Climbing Up To The Moon' are moody but extremely clever both in tune and lyrics. "End Times" is just boring. EELS have shown in the past you can have chill, more melodic songs that are still intriguing. Almost every track on "End Times" made me want to go to sleep. (even the more upbeat songs like 'Gone Man' and 'Paradise Blues' also aren't very original...pretty sure I've heard the exact same chords and beats on a million other albums) "End Times" is also chock-full of anticlimax. Throughout most of the songs you're waiting for a build-up or a climax that just never delivers.

With "Hombre Lobo" you could say that while it wasn't on par with what the EELS are capable of, it was at least a good album on it's own. Sadly that's not true for "End Times." On the list of ranked EELS albums, this 14-track snoozefest is at the very bottom in my opinion and on it's own isn't a very memorable CD.

If you're a fan of the EELS then you'll need no convincing to get this album. E continues to blow us away with beautiful and personal melodies, this album resonating with melancholy and difficult reflection of his relationship with his ex-wife whom he just divorced. Just listen to the simple song "Little Bird" if you want your heart broken.

The songs are raw and real, similar to their previous masterwork "Electro-Shock Blues". Not all songs are slow and sad -- but there's a definitive theme throughout. Beautiful and highly recommended!

Mark Oliver Everett is a man who writes through his pain. Be it the early Eels' masterpiece "Electro-Shock Blues" or this "End Times," he delivers agonizing self-reflections like few others. "End Times" is his divorce album; a bleak and relentless lo-fi downer that fits in seamlessly with Beck's "Sea Change."

Carried mainly by Everett's plaintive raspy tenor, "End Times" is often Dylan-esque where the words are less than transparent but the emotions are naked as ever. The rockabilly that propels "Gone Man" and the darkest humor of "Paradise Blues" give the album moments of levity, but for the most part, he's hiding in his basement (literally) and pouring it out into his microphone and four-track. Several of the songs are little more than Everett plunking a piano or strumming a guitar while reciting his melodic break-up poetry. Sometimes it works (the title song, "I Need a Mohrt"), and sometimes it sounds like the song you just listened to.

Which is what ultimately holds the album back. "End Times" deals in pure, undiluted sadness that Everett ties to the miserable state of the world in general, without much hope. Eels albums usually offered some kind of uplifting spirit to offset Everett's generally dour worldview. You won't get that on "End Times," although it's interesting to note that, within a year, The Eels would deliver the sunnier "Tomorrow Morning."

Heard a song from this album and was hooked I had to have it. Very diverse types of music - way off of mainstream and this band really does a great job by expressing their thought through their music.