E from Eels inhabited numerous personas over his fruitful 17-album career: the tragic post-grunger of ‘Beautiful Freak’ and ‘Electro-Shock Blues’, the unkempt drifter of ‘Souljacker’ and ‘Hombre Lobo’, the joyous prophet of ‘Tomorrow Morning’ and ‘Wonderful, Glorious’. Like his introspective last record ‘The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett’, ‘The Deconstruction’ finds him taking stock of the often tumultuous journey that brought him to where he is now.
But while its predecessor stripped the music back to focus on the emotional aspects of E’s life, this one finds him revisiting the various sonic paths he traversed along the way. The dusty beat and distorted beats of ‘Rusty Pipes’ hark to his late ‘90s experimentalism, while ‘You Are A Shining Light’ shows off his undiminished way with a scuzzy riff.
It feels like a career-straddling greatest hits collection in which all the ‘hits’ are brand new.
7/10
Words: Josh Gray
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