E
A Man Called E

A.D. 1992. A certain Mark Oliver Everett, known as Mr. E, appears on the music scene with the concept album "A Man Called E". Yes, you heard right. It's the same E who, shortly after, will create Eels, an excellent American lo-fi trio, which has released seven albums from the mid-'90s to today. But let's return to Mr. E. His debut is a little masterpiece with eleven tracks, eleven potential hits, eleven pearls of the highest quality.

The first few seconds of "Hello Cruel World" take us back for a moment to Queen's "A Kind Of Magic". The track is a wonderful pop chapter, with choruses that seem to be conceived by the Beach Boys themselves. "Fitting In With The Misfits" is the best chapter of the album. Introduced by divinely arranged strings, it culminates in a rock-blues song (of marvelous craftsmanship) with the classic verse-chorus-verse structure that highlights all of Mr. Everett's talent, both as a composer and as a vocalist. Among these eleven tracks, there's also room for a bit of romance, as evident in the wonderful semi-acoustic ballad "Looking Out The Window With A Blue Hat On." The impact it has on the listener is remarkable, and the emotions that linger after listening to these epic two minutes are noteworthy. "Mockingbird Franklin": when shivers run across the piano keys. Three minutes of absolute romance. The perfect combination of keyboards and piano makes the whole thing closer to classical perfection than to auteur pop. As if to say: no missteps, eleven tracks all on the same level, and I assure you, it's not a low level, quite the opposite...

Throughout the album, there are absolutely no weak points, no lapses in style, or tracks inferior to others. Everything remains at excellent levels. Authoritative pop rock, never banal, never clichéd. Particularly raw lyrics ("Find me an open grave just push me in then let me up to live again" ... "She says her mother is gone now she says her mother got killed i said i'm sorry but is it true" ... "Hello cruel world so this is you a broken heart a withered view i'm looking out to face another day") which, combined with the captivating melodies of the album, make it a small marvel from the mind of M.O. Everett. After this album, before giving life to Eels, Mr. E recorded "Broken Toy Shop", released the following year, which also matches the levels of this debut. With Eels, he couldn't maintain the consistency of these first two solo works, although with the Los Angeles trio, he did produce gems like "Electro-Shock Blues" and "Beautiful Freak" that can hardly be excluded from the lo-fi masterpieces of the last decade. The album has just finished, and you immediately want to start it over from the beginning, so much is the beauty emanated by this half-hour of music...

... highly recommended to everyone.