Eels return with their 16th (!) studio album, ‘Cookie Happened’. This record finds E (Mark Oliver Everett) taking stock of some of life’s messier moments and examining just what is the point of it all: ‘All of this will be forgotten. Every joy, accomplishment and hardship will one day become so irrelevant it will be as if none of it occurred. But as the great philosophiser of our times, Cookie Monster once said: ‘Me no cry because cookie is finished. Me smile because cookie happened’. This will all be forgotten, but isn’t it still a beautiful thing that it happened?’
‘Clobbered’ opens the record with a satisfying combination of acoustic strums, chimes and stirring strings. This soon makes way for a more Americana feel with E stating, with typical self-deprecation and awareness: ’10 years’ time ain’t what it used to be. I’m not what I thought I was’. This is followed by the Wilco-esque ‘Cap in Hand’, a song with an eerie start, alluring bass line and unique take on the rhyme ‘here’s the church, here’s the steeple’ being filled with ‘broken people’ – and yes, E does include himself. ‘All Forgotten’ is next up, bringing to mind Beck’s quieter moments or Scott Walker with its delicate, heart-wrenching nature: ‘When I figure out where I’m going, it will be too late to change’.
‘Bamboozled Again’ has a Laurel Canyon vibe running through its all-too-short running time, although combines with the alternative pop of Grandaddy, while ‘Taking Pictures’ is a piano-led ballad which once again puts pain and despair at the forefront: ‘No one loves you in New York’; ‘No one gets you back in Hollywood’. ‘New Story’ has more of a DIY guitar sound, although the hooks make way for moments of stillness as W wonders aloud about the power of magic: ‘Isn’t it tragic, the time that I waste. The things I should ignore, the things I should face’.
‘One Razzle, One Dazzle’ looks back on fatherly advice, inserting this into a compelling narrative that finds ‘blank faces marching the street’ before ‘I’m On Standby’ harks back to ‘Mr E’s Beautiful Blues’ with its melancholic, melodic and instantly hummable guitar work. The Elliott Smith-esque ‘Dum Dums’ opens with a memory of a loved one blaming E for getting wet after forgetting an umbrella, while he counteracts this argument with the wish ‘the world was just a beautiful place’ – a seemingly impossible dream we can all relate to. He follows this up with the undeniable line that ‘The world’s chockful of dum dums and little bitches’.
Album closer ‘The Way I was Made’ finds E backed by subtle strings as he offers some introspection: ‘It’s the way I was made. I didn’t ask for any of this but I try to make it work’. It’s always a delight to hear from Eels and ‘Cookie Happened’ is an album you’ll want to take a big bite into.
