Nominated by: Tom Jnr
Music club: MNAC
MNAC playlist addition: Blanket Of My Bone
Okay, for a while there I thought Lew meant Eels as in the band led by E who did some great early albums like Daisies of the Galaxy, but no! When I put it on, I was startled at how different they sounded. Then I figured it out. The album is called Eels by a band I'd never heard of - Being Dead, a duo/trio from Texas.
Eels are slippery, slithery, forward-looking things that inhabit rivers where I live (New Zealand). They can look menacing, but they are pretty benign. Being Dead and their album are pretty slippery/slithery as well. The 16 tracks on Eels are mostly around the minute to two-minute mark; only five are more than three minutes long. So, they slither past pretty quickly.
A good or bad thing? Well, it takes some of them a while to make much of an impression as they speed by.
I especially liked Blanket Of My Bone for the Mama & the Papa's-isms; Firefights for its propulsive-ness; Van Goes (ha ha) for its B52ishness; Nightvision/Love Machine for the Marine Girls indie-pop-isms; Gazing At Footwear (nice ambient guitar).
Only a few didn't move me (even Rock n' Roll Hurts which is silly and a bit pointless is still catchy), Those were some of the song fragments littered around the more fully formed songs.
On balance though - a fascinating bunch of songs and deliveries. I do prefer the songs featuring male/female vocal dynamics I find, and the album held my attention if just for - what style are they going to try next?
They run the full gamut don't they? In total it feels a bit like a sprawling double album but the length of a single, if you know what I mean.
