With Strings Live at Town Hall
Creative restlessness is not often rewarded in the arts marketplace; we want to know that you're the woman who does those paintings of pixies, or that gritty pop-punk act who sings songs about how parents really suck. And when we go to see you perform live, you better play your song like we heard it on the radio, the same way it sounds in our heads. Right? Eels leader Mark Oliver Everett, aka E, does not fit this profile in the slightest. He notoriously tours with wildly different variations on his perpetually mopey, low-key Eels. This disc captures E in a performance from his "With Strings" tour, playing a career-spanning sampler with a few covers while backed by two multi-instrumentalists and a string quartet. E's gruff Care Bear voice almost-soars atop ingenious and sparse arrangements throughout: strings, xylophone and singing saw on "Bus Stop Boxer"; bass, piano and strings on "Losing Streak." The only sore spot is how similarly-paced the twenty-two songs are, though fans will have no problem with that.–Mike McGonigal