Eels - Tomorrow Morning

Eels have released four studio albums in the past five years, which is fairly prolific, by anybody’s standards. Take into account though, that there was a four year gap between the first and second of these (during which E wrote his autobiography ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know’ and made a documentary about his physicist father – Hugh Everett III – ‘Parallel Worlds; Parallel Lives’, both worth investigating.) and that fact appears all the more impressive.

‘Tomorrow Morning’ though, suggests that Mark Oliver Everett has been spreading himself a little too thin.

The last in a trilogy of sorts (which also includes with ‘Hombre Lobo; 12 Songs of Desire’, released in June 2009, and January’s ‘End Times’) it is a distinctly more optimistic record than it’s predecessors, as the title suggests.

Eels have done this kind of thing very well before, particularly on their first three records. The samples, swirling strings and chuggy baselines that graced those records are all here, but it all feels a little inconsequential.  Both ‘Spectacular Girl’ and ‘What I Have to Offer’ fall somewhere between being quintessentially Eels, and Eels by numbers, the latter is particualary anodyne. As is 'Oh So Lovely’, with it’s cod tudor (??) keys and strings, has fast become my least favourite Eels song, it’s incredibly trite, and try as I might, I cannot fathom it’s inclusion on this record.

If ‘Hombre Lobo’ was the scuzzy rock record, ‘End Times’ the acoustic confessional, then ‘Tomorrow Morning’ is surely the electronica album. Mixing indie and electronica is nothing new, Eels have tinkered with it in the past, as has Beck, and Jimmy Tomborello of Dntel and The Postal Service (whose string arrangements appear to have heavily influenced E) has, to my mind, pretty much perfected the art. The little flourishes on ‘Tomorrow Morning’ are all rather pleasant, but the use of drum machines, especially on ‘The Man’ is so basic, so rudimentary, it’s dull. The simple beat of the hazy ‘That’s Not Her Way, however, works a treat, as does the ‘Little Bird’ – esque simplicity of the rather sweet ‘I Like the Way this is Going’.

My main issue with ‘Tomorrow Morning’ is it’s lack of direction, the songs don’t seem to go anywhere, or do anything.  It’s obvious that the past few years haven’t been easy for Mr Everett, what he needs to do now, or what I hope he does now, is to take some time out, recharge, and come back with something, and I can’t think of a simpler way to say this, something more.