After a four year gap between albums from 2005 to 2009, Eels release two in quick succession. The follow-up to last year's 'Hombre Lobo' is a stark, downbeat affair centred on heartbreak and isolation.
Mark 'E' Everett is not exactly known for being a happy-chappy, but calling his latest album 'End Times' takes the biscuit. Still, after last year's likeable 'Hombre Lobo', he can't be in too despairing a state of mind, right? Well, the theme of 'End Times' is nothing like its predecessor's subtitle '12 Songs of Desire'; these 11 songs (plus two brief interludes) are based around the fact that the Everett is getting older (he's now 46), as well as a fractured relationship - presumably the one he touched upon with 'Hombre Lobo'.
Thematic acknowledgements aside, Eels' eighth album is a musically measly work. That's not necessarily a bad thing; stripping things back to basic guitar and piano arrangements places a stronger emphasis on lyrics, but when those lyrics are almost entirely maudlin tales of loss, it's an overbearing weight.
Everett wallows in his broken heart a little too much, singing in a hoarse Dylan-esque croak for most of 'End Times'. But there are moments of redemption, too. Springsteen fans will hear parallels on the husky, semi-rockabilly kick of 'Paradise Blues' and the morose grittiness of 'The Beginning'. 'Unhinged' runs completely off-course with undertones of Hammond organ psychedlia, while 'Gone Man', probably the best song here, sounds like something from Ryan Adams's 2000 debut 'Heartbreaker'.
Those acceptable variations aside, though, there's little disparity on 'End Times'. "Being on my feet these days, well, it's a wonder I survived", sings Everett on the closing track. Considering the man's troubled life, it certainly is a wonder, and respect is indubitably due. But better songwriters have channelled their wretchedness into better songs than these.
