After the most prolific period of his career, Mark Oliver Everett (better known as E), the one man behind indie rock band Eels disappeared from the music world for nearly a full four years. No releases, no tours. After releasing five albums in five years, E was likely burned out from producing music. While those five albums were far from the salad days of early Eels offerings each had plenty of redeemable qualities and each its own distinguished sound. During this four year wait, fans conjured visions of E slaving away a veritable return to form. However, The Deconstruction leaves one wondering if E is still capable of writing another truly great album. He seems most comfortable living in his constructed mediocrity.

After releasing the twelfth Eels album, The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett in 2014, E only entertained his fans with radio silence for almost four years. Cautionary Tales was a welcome tonal shift from the preceding Wonderful, Glorious. Both albums had their moments; Cautionary Tales was far from a dynamic sound but its inherent earnestness made up for some of its downfalls while Wonderful, Glorious was an ad hoc love letter to the hard rock that E himself grew up on. While E built his musical success on his intricate lyrics that were an idiosyncratic blend of melancholy reflection and whimsy narrative (all of which he attempted to get back to on Cautionary Tales), the lyrics to Wonderful, Glorious were comprised from sparse notes in his notebook and according to E, where written from situations that he “wants to be in”, rather than the situation he is in. It resulted in a fun rock record. It came without pretense and while it lacked nuance and depth, it was exactly what E set out to achieve.

After his four years of radio silence, E surprised fans with an announcement of the impending release of The Deconstruction in January. Along with this announcement came the release of the album’s first single, the title track, and what was labelled an ‘album trailer’. The trailer consisted of a twenty second smash cut of Eels music videos, live performances, interviews and press engagements that started chronologically from the band’s first single Novocaine for the Soul. Set to the album’s an instrumental portion of then unreleased track The Unanswerable (one of the album’s highlights), the trailer transitions from the smash cut to the album’s insignia, a lit match. The match soon sprites a flowery flame, revealing the new album cover. The deconstruction has begun.

This tease of a trailer, along with the title track and the concept of an Eels ‘deconstruction’ led to unprecedented excitement among the Eels fanbase. While it was speculated in some circles that the deconstruction could be some sort of reworking of former Eels tracks, fans were mostly excited that after the previous five albums of experimentation in a different rock sound and thematic concepts that ultimately lacked substance, that E might ‘finally’ be making an album that harkened back to his salad days of his first six albums.

The next we heard from E was in form of a press release that dampened expectations. A lot has changed in the world since E last released music or toured and the “mess” that the world is in has left him to consider the role of (his) music in people’s lives. Always the dissident, E opens his release promising not to conform to bureaucracy which he surely blames for the world’s “mess”:

Hi,

We could do the usual record company “bio” about this new record, but, seriously… who gives a fuck.

E goes on to stress that the change needed in the world starts with the individual and that the individual can start change by simply being ‘nice’ to other people. He says that we all have bad days and that nobody has it easy (something he knows better than most) so being kind is the least a person can do. An admirable sentiment but ultimately vapid. In fairness to him, he goes on to state that this press release his him mostly talking to himself. It certainly comes across that he is trying to articulate some of the thoughts that he has ruminating in his head over the past four years; this is the first time he’s spoken to his fans in forever and he wants to express only what is most important to him.

The rest of the release is a similar vapid threnody- in which he manages to quote Roger Miller and tease one new track “The Cathedral”- until he states this album’s modus operandi. To “rock you”:

Here are 15 new EELS tracks that may or may not inspire, rock, or not rock you.

Unfortunately, E manages to pre-empt my reaction to the album. For the most part, these tracks do not inspire me. Nor, do they rock me. E is an artist who has previously managed to achieve both goals at a level few have (See P.S You Rock My World for the kind of life-affirming inspiration E is capable of, and the entirety of Souljacker for the fun and introspective rock that he is capable of).

The Deconstruction consists of fifteen tracks, half of which I would fail to distinguish from another. The title track, along with Today is the Day and Bone Dry at least provoke my attention and fit with the modern Eels rock sound. They would not be out of the place on either of his previous two albums -not exactly high praise, admittedly. The Deconstruction offers none of E’s eccentricity and none of the conventionally unconventional pop ingenuity on which he earned his esteemed indie rock notoriety. E is becoming the status quo he built his career on avoiding.

The most redeeming and interesting parts of this album are the three instrumental tracks (The Quandry, Coming Back and The Unanswerable) which are a mellifluous sojourn from the boring highway that is The Deconstruction. These tracks are the saving grace of this album as they show that E is still willing to trust the sound of his music and mess with the expectations of his listener.

The Deconstruction is the least interesting Eels offering to date. While Tomorrow Morning has a similar meandering, samey quality to it, there a few catchy songs (Spectaucluar Girl, The Man, I Like the Way this is Going) that warrant going back to. Sadly, The Deconstruction is the most monotonous album is a rather lethargic era of the Eels discography.

The Deconstruction isn’t an album that changes with subsequent listens. E says there’s still great beauty to be found in the world, but it certainly isn’t here.