Eels – Souljacker

Though he’s eccentric and subservise, it’s hard to know exactly why E has dressed as the Unabomber on the cover of Souljacker. What is clear, however, is that E, aka Mark Oliver Everett, has released what is the finest Eels work to date. It’s also surprisingly upbeat for an album that touches on bullies, side-show freaks, murderers, ghosts, and a “family affair down under the covers.”
Souljacker has a lingering beauty, punched up by John Parish, who helped produce. He also plays guitar on the album, giving it a pronounced PJ Harvey sound understandable since he produced and developed “To Bring You My Love.” Souljacker opens with the urgent, bouncy, angry beat of “Dog Faced Boy,” a song about getting back at people people who mock and brutalize the kid who’s different. The song could be a Beck cover, with its driving bass line and vocals punctuated by screaching about how “life ain’t pretty.”
The bossa nova sounds of “That’s Not Really Funny” tell the story of a macho man on the edge, about to crack. He doesn’t. Next we’re drawn into the beautiful orchestral strains of the pained love song, “Fresh Feeling.” No, it’s not a douche commercial, but it could be.
Ideas for Souljacker started to come to E while at a meditative retreat in California, where he wasn’t supposed to speak, read, or write for 10 days. He had to sneak into the bathroom and scribble the songs out on toilet paper. The name Souljacker, inspired by a serial killer in the ’90s who claimed to take the souls of his victims, is also the title track, the most raucus song on the album. It’s a world where there’s hard roads, hard luck, and where “sisters and brothers make better lovers.”
The ethereal sounds of “Friendly Ghost” touch on two of E’s recurring themes: grudges and death. The chorus, “If you’re scared to die, you better not be scared to live,” is a plea to give up old grudges and let go of your fear – sung by a man who lost his entire family in quick succession and knows of what he speaks.
Sure, he sings about epidurals, bullet holes, worms and moles, bugs and birds. But he also knows about romantic love. In the appropriately titled “World of Shit” love is redemptive, it can bring you in off the ledge. And you get the feeling that it’s love that saves E from writing his own manifesto.