Eels – Extreme Witchcraft (EWorks/PIAS): Album Review

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Eels practice Extreme Witchcraft on this, their 14th studio album. For this one Mr. E is back working with his Souljacker co-producer John Parish.

Its been 20 years since Parish and E have collaborated and since that time JP has built a solid reputation producing PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding and Jesca Hoop.  Now, freshly divorced and dealing with the global pandemic Mark Oliver Everett retreats behind a wall of distortion that he and Parish first created on 2001’s Souljacker.

“It was a near perfect morning…the sun was shining”, is how opening track Amateur Hour starts things off. But by the time we get through twelve tracks, E is once again full of self-loathing, closing out the record with this line, “I’m a God-damned fool”.

So no surprises there. Everett’s life and art have always been full of tremendous ups and downs and this album is no exception.

The first half of the record crackles loudly with overdriven guitars on rockers like Good Night On Earth and Steam Engine.

It’s a great, cobweb-clearing start, with Strawberries and Popcorn finding the newly single E realizing that now there’s “nobody here to pester me now” and “I don’t miss getting bossed around”.

File that tune under “post divorce”

But, as they say, freedom’s just another word…

And by So Anyway it seems that maybe E is missing his ex. This is a quieter, reflective number… almost jazzy…with Everett noting, “there’s a little bit of you in everything I do”.

Musically, the album slips away from its distortion-driven rockers and fluctuates from a bouncy, maraca pop tune like Better Living Through Desperation (a highlight) to the downbeat What It Isn’t”.

E even tunes into his inner Paul Simon as Learning While I Lose captures a Me & Julio vibe despite the morose lyrics.

There something for everyone here and something for to make you feel that you’re not going through this alone. Let Extreme Witchcraft cast its spell on you.

Marty Duda

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Marty Duda
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