The Deconstruction

Lead singer Mark Oliver Everett’s mellow tones remain soothingly constant with plenty of orchestral influences present in Eels’ latest offering—especially in the title track’s dark strings and “Rusty Pipes” with its subtle choral background vocals. “You Are The Shining Light” provides throwback with a ‘60s style drum beat and a piercing electric guitar lead, while the atmospheric “In Our Cathedral” gives that warm, fuzzy feeling—making *The Deconstruction* a reflective look at life through varied pop and rock styles.

On Eels’ 12th album, Mark Everett trots out his reflexive self-loathing and elementary rhyme schemes one more time, with no clear reason why.

Wye Oak’s sixth album is beautifully dense, while The Deconstruction proves the Eels haven’t lost their touch for melancholic pop, and Dr. Octagon swings for the goddamn fences on Moosebumps. These, plus The Weeknd, No Thank You, Kali Uchis, and many more in this week’s new releases.

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Eels’ find themselves flourishing once again, with E. looking outwards rather than inwards on ‘The Deconstruction’.

In this week’s roundup, the Manics are as fervently political as ever, while Spanish rock band Hinds thrive on their imperfections

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More staggering works of heartbreaking genius from E and his team.

Eels' music has always had an element of retro-futurism to it; the dusty beats of their early work brushed up against strings and Mark Oliver Everett's knack for flipping '50s sentimentalism on its head. The Deconstruction comes after a four-year break a rare respite for Everett, who released five albums between 2009 and 2014 alone. Burnt out and considering retiring from music which he nods to in the album's opening title track Everett bounced back.

Since Beautiful Freak debuted in 1996, Mark Oliver Everett (aka Eels, aka E) has been crafting quirkily moody pop songs enabling him to hone Eels' eclectic sound into a unique hybrid style that is less a composite of multiple genres and more of an unclass

E from Eels inhabited numerous personas over his fruitful 17-album career: the tragic post-grunger of ‘Beautiful Freak’ and

The Deconstruction reduces the complex spectrum of human emotions to mere binaries.

'The Deconstruction' by EELS: EELS get majestic and mysterious in our review of 'The Deconstruction'

Everett wants us to know that we’re all “badasses in training.”

Album Reviews: Eels - The Deconstruction

Acoustic tenderness gets lost amongst middle-of-the-road musical wanderings. Review by Javi Fedrick