Eels
Souljacker
(Dreamworks SKG)
By: Jeff Leisawitz - ModernRock.com
E is the guy behind the Eels. In years past he's rocked your planet with Beautiful Music, Electro-Shock Blues and Daisies of the Galaxy. And now, fresh for 2002, E and the guys bring us a dozen new songs known collectively as Souljacker.
As you might suspect, a souljacker is someone who steals your soul. E got the idea while he was deep into a ten day meditation where he was prohibited from reading, writing and speaking. (He scratched some lyrics down on toilet paper while no one was looking so he wouldn't forget.)
The record (and the meditation) was a reaction to some serious nastiness in E's world. Sometimes the emotion came out as weirdness, rage, fuzztones and noise, like on "Dog Faced Boy" and "That's Not Really Funny." But sometimes the music fell into groovy drum loops and slippery strings on tracks like "Fresh Feeling" and "Woman Driving, Man Sleeping."
"Souljacker," the song, came through in two parts. Part One nudges distortion and a slappy riff across a bangin' bassline. Part Two drops the noise for some pretty graphic lyrics. "Souljacker can't get my soul/ Left my carcass with the worms and moles/ Souljacker can't get my soul/ He can hang my neck from the old flagpole."
Eels mix it up between scratchy electric rock and chillin' back beats for much of the rest of this disc. "Bus Stop Boxer," "Friendly Ghost," and the classic, twisted love song, "World of Sh*t," raise the bar and make you wonder if E should consider a lobotomy.
Along with Souljacker you also get a second disc, Rotten World Blues, a four song EP with tunes like "I Write the B Sides," "Hidden Track," and "Jehovah's Witness." Together, it's a wild ride through the heart and mind of the man they call E. Fasten your seatbelts.
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