Product Description

This is the sixth album from American indie rock outfit Eels. Spread across two CD's the album sees the band continue with their quirky indie rock sound while being joined by a whole host of guests including Tom Waits, REM's Peter Buck, and The Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Theme From Blinking Lights
2. From Which I Came / A Magic World
3. Son Of A Bitch
4. Blinking Lights (For Me)
5. Trouble With Dreams
6. Marie Floating Over The Backyard
7. Suicide Life
8. In The Yard, Behind The Church
9. Railroad Man
10. The Other Shoe
11. Last Time We Spoke
12. Mother Mary
13. Going Fetal
14. Understanding Salesman
15. Theme For A Pretty Girl That Makes You Believe God Exists
16. Checkout Blues
17. Blinking Lights (For You)

Disc 2:

1. Dust Of Ages
2. Old Shit / New Shit
3. Bride of Theme From Blinking Lights
4. Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)
5. I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart
6. To Lick Your Boots
7. If You See Natalie
8. Sweet Li'l Thing
9. Dusk:A Peach In The Orchard
10. Whatever Happened To Soy Bomb
11. Ugly Love
12. God's Silence
13. Losing Streak
14. Last Days Of My Bitter Heart
15. The Stars Shine In The Sky Tonight
16. Things The Grandchildren Should Know

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14767 in Music
• Released on: 2005-04-25
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Box set
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
It may have taken several years for Eels frontman Mark Oliver Everett, a.k.a. E, to write and record Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, but the end result is no less than a masterpiece. At two discs and 33 tracks, it’s a veritable epic, but when your topic is no less than life itself, it’s good to have a bit of space to work in. This is a grown-up album about being a grown-up, and in the years it took to create, Everett has done a lot of growing up, and dealt with a lot of tragedy: his mother died of cancer, his sister committed suicide, and his cousin was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. With all that, it’s almost a wonder that Blinking Lights doesn’t lose itself totally to melancholy. Sure, there’s an overarching sense of sadness to this album (culminating in the beautiful and painful "If You See Natalie"), but tracks like "Hey Man", "Trouble with Dreams" and "Going Fetal" (the latter featuring Tom Waits) all display a hopeful exuberance and contagious optimism. It may be a lot to take in over a single listen, but Blinking Lights and Other Revelations is well worth the effort. It’s a remarkable achievement. --Robert Burrow

Album Description
The new Eels album, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, is a two disc set about "God and all the questions related to the subject of God," says its creator, E. A homemade epic, it's an imaginative, emotional reflection on the condition of living, recorded mostly in Everett's Los Angeles basement over a period of several years. Sprawling over its two discs are songs about faith, responsibility, growing up, dignity, disappointment, comfort, hope and renewal.

Echoes of Everett's Virginia youth are heard during a fever-dreamed summer night's picnic inside the Civil War-era graveyard near his family's house ("In the Yard, Behind the Church), while the engineer of a dying travel industry laments the long gone Washington & Old Dominion Railroad that once ran nearby ("Railroad Man").

Finally completed in 2004, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations rides a wide aural spectrum of sometimes disparate, ghostly sounds--from the saxophone sextet gospel of "Son Of A Bitch," to the surf-rock operatic wail of "Old Shit/New Shit." There's the apocalyptic fire and brimstone of "The Other Shoe," and then there's the Jackie Wilson-in-cyberspace existential celebration of "Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)." The album is full of unusual instrumentation and some notable guest stars. One song ("Last Time We Spoke") features Everett's hound dog, Bobby, Jr., howling a lonesome solo. A few songs later, Eels-fan-turned-collaborator Tom Waits cries a solo--literally--("Going Fetal"). Later, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck (making his second appearance on an Eels album) plays dobro, guitar and bass (the Buck co-written "To Lick Your Boots"), and on an album that prominently features the autoharp on several songs, it's exciting to know that the king of rock & roll autoharp, The Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian, makes a rare appearance, playing autoharp on one track ("Dusk: A Peach In The Orchard," co-written by Sebastian).

Customer Reviews

ignore remote control
this is one of the few bands that hold my attention throughout all of the tracks ignoring the remote completely.

An absolute gem of an album.....
OK, I am an Eels fan, but this album is just a great listening experience. The album has the sound of an amalgamation of the previous 5 Eels albums, although it's probably E's most realised and strongest album to date. Unlike many double albums, there isn't any filler tracks - even the short instrumental songs (which sometimes sound like musical interludes) are beautiful pieces of music. Highlights of the album are Railroad Man, Losing Streak, Trouble With Dreams and the reflective last track Things The Grandchildren Should Know. In my opinion, this is the album of 2005.

This man is a genius
To fill one album full of great songs is hard enough, but to make a double album this good is incredible. I had the good fortune to see the man live at a small, intimate gig in Auckland last year and the songs played live were real stand-outs. There is greater variety of musical styles here than one previous works and it just shows the depth of talent "E" has. I thought Beautiful Feak and SoulJacker could not be bettered but I was wrong. Awesome.