DanVerlaine

Amazing album. Real rating: 4.5
There are 2 or 3 songs that have never convinced me.
For the rest... ROCK SCHOOL with the Stones!

Real rating: 4.5.
In my opinion, the Beatles don't have much, except for their approach to songwriting that can actually seem similar.
If pop were always like that of XTC, I would love pop.
Not to be missed: War Dance

A decent album by the Fighters. It doesn't add much to their career, but it does summarize it quite well. Recommended for those who are not familiar with the Grohol band. The problem with the Foo is that they are judged by Nirvana fans. They should be taken for what they are: a honest pop-punk-rock band, without many pretensions and with good songwriting skills.

This work represents a U-turn compared to Blinking Lights, long and with carefully crafted sounds. A couple of ballads, as mentioned, feel somewhat familiar, and other tracks seem to lack the imaginative arrangements that helped create the Eels' myth. Class is not water, and here we have proof of that, yet perhaps it has all been put together a bit too hastily. An album that overall works, containing 3-4 high-level tracks, but shows us a version of the Eels that is somewhat more uniform, more focused on inheriting the legacy of various Young, Dylan, and Lennon rather than surprising us again (even though it does somewhat with a reggae-infused song). The lyrics are fabulous. I mute my rating to 3 stars. My favorite track is My Timing Is Off, followed by Fresh Blood (one of the best singles by the Eels) and Tremendous Dynamite.

Ugly Rece, decent album. Essential for discovering the more bluesy side of the Eels. Not all the tracks are convincing, but it certainly wouldn't disappoint a novice. Fresh Feeling is one of the masterpieces of the Eels.

Please forgive the numerous typos and repetitions; I wrote it in 4 different sessions and didn't proofread it, me jackass :).

At first glance, it felt like an overly long and somewhat boring album to me too.
Then slowly, I started to love 4-5 songs, then another 2, another 2 again, and in the end, I thought: damn, this is a masterpiece.
Certainly, it's not an album for every taste, and it's possible that the dreamy/melancholic tone could become tiring when spread over a 33-song record.
That said, here we are facing an album that contains about twenty pearls of rare splendor, another 7-8 excellent songs, and only 3-4 minor tracks, but not filler ones.
The work is monumental and acquires a complete meaning when reading the lyrics.
For some reason, I compare it to Tutti Morimmo A Stento by De Andrè, albums that the more superficial find "heavy" and "boring," but that emanate an overwhelming intensity and inspiration.
A formidable album.
Whatever Happened To Soy Bomb is worthy of Young, In The Yard Behind The Church is a beautiful ballad that somewhat reminds me of Grandaddy.
There are numerous delightful trinkets: Hey Man, Going Fetal, Losing Streak.
The rockier E peeks out only here and there (the excellent The Other Shoe), but in compensation, there are some of the best country-folk episodes of Mr. E's career: RailRoad Man and the beautiful Things That Grandchildren Should Know, which closes a monumental work to be discovered day by day, preferably with the booklet in hand.
Warm, emotional, sweet, evocative, for me, it's better than the Eels, even though some facets of their sound are completely missing.
This is one face of the Eels, and it's a monstrously beautiful face.
P.S.: That said, the piano ballads in particular risk making the proposal indeed a bit heavy; if you find Losing Streak, Mother Mary, Hey Man boring, get yourself checked out by a good one or alternatively, shoot yourself.

The album is decent, but it's the least good in the Eels' discography. Love Of The Loveless is, however, a standout track and Saturday Morning is a nice power-pop piece in the R.E.M. style.

By the way, the piece is dedicated to the mother and her passion for birds.

As often happens, criticism tends to make the equation troubled/sad=quality, whereas I believe that both Beautiful Freak and Blinking Lights are on par, if not superior to this. Some unmissable tracks, brilliant flashes, but overall the tone risks being really too heavy.