Eels – The Cautionary Tales Of Mark Oliver Everett
- Written by Carrie Mok
Mark Oliver Everett is engrossed in his own past, forever reengaging with his mistakes and what might have been. For that reason, his 11th studio album with Eels, egotistically named The Cautionary Tales Of Mark Oliver Everett, is an interesting autobiography.
The record begins with a falsely welcoming and out-of-place serenade. ‘Where I’m At’ is an instrumental reminiscent of ‘Morning Wood’, the flute focussed waking up instrumental, as if it was the prologue to the long road ahead. Everett then begins with one amongst many odes to lost lovers as ‘Parallels’ drones onwards with repeating guitar riffs and Everett complains of having “woke up last in a world I can’t escape”.
It can’t be doubted that at 51 years old, Everett still has that unique purring voice that makes every single song he writes an easy listen. This is most evident in the very simple yet subtle ‘Agatha Chang’ where he almost howls as he laments over breaking up with the titular character. The thing is, Everett just about misses everything and everybody as seen across the record, so is Agatha Chang even that important of a person in his past?
He does at least try to come to terms with himself and at times seems to come to some kind of epiphany like in the very odd ‘Dead Reckoning’ and the eerie glockenspiel and violin led (yes a glockenspiel) “Series of Misunderstandings”. With its sombre funereal horns and flutes accompanying a thunderous atmosphere, Everett sighs “I can’t change you, I can’t change anyone” in the first and creepily whispers “I don’t think you know how to change it/Inching towards the end bit by bit” in the second song.
But you’ve got to admit, at least he’s being honest, and writing about what he knows while at the same time telling the world how to not be him. It’s funny because Everett actually claims in ‘Mistakes Of My Youth’ that he will “Stop defeating my own self / Stop repeating yesterday” when the entire album is an ever-looping letter to his past self. It’s especially strange with ‘Locked Down Hurricane’ which is repetitive (something Everett said he would be omitting from his life) but erupting into an instrumental crescendo with Everett exclaiming “Don’t you see it?!”. No we really don’t.
The Cautionary Tales Of Mark Oliver Everett are available from amazon (here) and iTunes (here).