Disco de Eels: “Tomorrow Morning”

I've never reviewed an piece of music on Amazon before, but I feel compelled to say how much Eels "Tomorrow Morning" reminds me of Peter Gabriel--not only the sound of the male vocal on "I'm A Hummingbird," which makes me think of Gabriel's song "I Grieve, on his album

, but also something about the way I experience many of the other songs. Because Gabriel's music resonates deeply with me, I'm glad I found this offering from Eels.

I wasn't thrilled with their last CD, Hombre Lobo. A lot of big fat hooks that felt recycled from numerous artists. I wasn't even going to bother with this one but hey - it is the Eels and everyone can have an off album. Glad I took a chance. They throw in some great orchestrations, drum beats and superb melodies... my favorite Eels album to date.

I had not heard of The Eels until Meg Griffin on SIrius/XM started playing "Baby Loves Me", "The Man" and "Spectacular Girl." Those alone were worth the price of the CD. E has a touching back story that makes this album even more surprising and relevant. Give it a few plays to settle into context. We are Boomers who like to find new music we can add to our playlist. "Tomorrow Morning" is currently at the top.

I remember well the first time I heard any music by Mark Everett. He was just E back then and Hello Cruel World just struck me dumb. What a classic. What a wonderful sounding song. Right then, I thought that this E fellow was going to be a big big deal. And he has been with a steady stream of exceptional solo and eels' albums. Every one of those albums had one or more songs that were just fantastic, but he never seemed to get it all together for an entire record.

I knew that he was capable of it and I hoped that it was just a matter of time until he dropped a new disk that would just blow me away from start to finish. Well that time arrived in late August when Tomorrow Morning was sprung on an unsuspecting world.

This is the masterpiece that Mark Oliver Everett had in him. From start to finish one song after another full of typically marvelous melodies, lyrics full of truth and great humor, and arrangements full of ever more brilliant surprises.

Looking Up is a straight forward gospel song with E screaming out delighted howls all over the last third. The last song, Mystery of Life, is filled with a Beach Boyish choir throughout. But it is This Is Where It Gets Good that stands tall over everything else. Clocking in at over six minutes, the 2:41 mark begins one of the most creative orchestral instrumental passages you have ever heard. It is a work of extraordinary sophistication. It is a revelation. It is the frosting on the cake.

Listen to these songs. Read the lyrics. Listen to E's wonderful dark brown voice, as always mixed way up high, and still reminding me of this now long discarded pair of shoes I used to wear nearly everyday because they were so well-broken in that they were just incredibly comfortable. One writer once compared E's voice to that wonderful old cardigan you wore so often that you wore through both elbows.

Well done, E. Very well done indeed.

Fans of the Eels know that the quality of their musical output can be inconsistent at best, from the brilliant Electro-Shock Blues to disappointing efforts like Shootenanny. Their latest release finds them coasting along the middle. Tomorrow Morning is the third in a trilogy of concept albums that trace the themes of Desire, Divorce, and now...Delight? Most of the songs are about the joy that comes in a new relationship, and while it's nice to hear E being happy for a change, much of the music just feels all too familiar. There are stand-out tracks in "This Is Where It Gets Good" and "Oh So Lovely," and there are signs that E is trying to do different things with the sounds on the album, but most of the songs just feel like they've been done before.