“When you start doing any one thing too much in your life, it catches up to you,” says Mark Oliver Everett. “I just got so exhausted and needed to process everything that happened in my life without music.”
Ever since 1996 Eels debut Beautiful Freak, the Virginia-born Californian of disarming pessimism has laid bare his life in crystallized confessions, a constant form of catharsis to process the death of his immediate family, including his father from a heart attack (1982), his sister by her own hand (1996), and his mother via cancer (1998).
E’s first album in four years, last April’s The Deconstruction trades gloomy introspection for some newfound optimism. Even as his sandpaper voice juxtaposes against choral, stringed arrangements à la ninth album Tomorrow Morning (2010), the 56-year-old proves he’s a changed man. While standout Electro-Shock Blues (1998) stares death in the face, Eels’ 12th full-length deconstructs his misanthropy into carpe diem hope in “Today Is the Day,” the bittersweet reckoning of “Sweet Scorched Earth,” and the weathered musings on “In Our Cathedral.” Without prior knowledge of his trenchant past, one might minimize the disc as sanguine platitudes, but there’s a stalwart courage to The Deconstruction – and hopefulness.
“I started seeing everything through a different lens,” reflects Everett on becoming a father. “It makes you realize that despite the pain and struggle, life is worth living.”
This acceptance of both joy and pain refracts on “Be Hurt.” Amidst the mistakes and damage, its author’s trademark cynicism blossoms into compassionate humanity and universal empathy since “the world can take it/ so can you.”
“I remember visiting my mom, and being so depressed, but I stared up and saw a blue sky,” he recalls. “It reminded me there’s beauty in pain, and I hope in processing my own [pain], it helps others process theirs.”
Mon., May 6, 7:30pm