Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

Eels: Daisies of the Galaxy

Three Stars

On the Eels' third major-label album, Daisies of the Galaxy, founder and tortured soul E - once named Mark Oliver Everett - again reaches deep inside himself and bears an intense, emotional montage of dark feelings.

But that's only half the story.

On Daisies, he changes the Eels' musical style, replacing the familiar sampling and dark, jaded loops of both 1996's Beautiful Freak and 1998's Electro-shock Blues with high energy, folky acoustic numbers (think anything from the '60s) that provide backing to - believe it or not - some songs about joy and happiness.

E's new musical direction plays well however. Songs like "Grace Kelly Blues" and "Packing Blankets" follow easily, like joyful childhood memories. But the highlights of the album are still songs revolving around sorrow and pain. "It's a Motherfucker" and "Something Sacred" mimic the wonderfully painful tales of isolation heard on Beautiful Freak.

E's raspy, melancholy voice supplies a certain sweetness to his songs of depression and despair. His voice alone provides enough reason to become entranced in sordid tales of suicide, loneliness and regret.

Daisies of the Galaxy smoothly presents the best of both worlds - sweet and sour, hot and cold, ecstatic and empty.

E finds - and provides - pleasure in pain. He seems capable of perfectly resonating that tiny feeling of happiness felt almost simultaneously within a sad situation by some people, and it is those songs that stand out from the rest of the happy folky pop numbers.