eMusic Review 0
When the chart-topping alt-rock radio hit "Novocaine For the Soul" helped land Eels on the 1997 Lollapalooza tour, leader Mark Everett was miserable. His sister had committed suicide; his mom was dying of cancer; the jocks he hated in high school were at his shows and giving him the finger. So, as he explained to eMusic, Everett consciously weeded away his audience and nurtured his artistry with what was considered one of the riskiest and most notoriously dark albums of the '90s.
Heard over a decade later, Electro-Shock Blues feels a whole lot lighter, and brings to mind that scene in Up where the old man dumps the physical ties to his old life in order to stay aloft. The album opens with "Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor," where he puts himself in the prone position of his severely depressed sister, and goes on to address the radiation treatments that failed to combat his mother's illness ("Cancer For the Cure"), childhood visions of impending doom, ("3 Speed"), alienation and longing for connectedness ("Ant Farm"), etc. But with the weighty topics comes a sense of liberation because Everett's letting go of the obligations that come with commercial expectations: "Goodbye radioplay focus… read more »
