Album Review: Eels - The Cautionary Tales Of Mark Oliver Everett

With each album you tend to find the eponymous Mr Everett – the artist usually more simply known as 'E' – either looking inward or outward. As the title suggests, this is himself in reflective mode. And regrets – he's got a few. Lots, even.

There are obvious ones, like Agatha Chan – he knows he should have stayed with the girl with “the aching eyes”. But elsewhere it's a bit more existential, as simple and complicated as Parallel's “Waking up lost, in a world I didn't know”. The mood is weary and downbeat, a contrast after the somewhat more buzzy energy – and perhaps slightly slapdash nature – of the previous Wonderful, Glorious.

This is Chamber Eels. A little string section hums here and there; opening instrumental Where I'm At is a wheezy brass overture; the resigned shrug of Series Of Misunderstandings muses over what sounds like a music-box winding down. It's music for grown-ups, possibly with the realisation there might be fewer years ahead than behind him. He knows the Mistakes Of My Youth, but realises he might still make some of them again. And maybe darkly celebrate that he can.

Long-term Eels enthusiasts will be comfortable with this latest intimate communiqué from the Everett bunker. He's still happily unhappy to dig around in the dusty corners of his psyche and tell you about it. If you're prepared to listen to some sometimes uncomfortable home truths, you'll probably learn something.