Eels: Eels So Good – Oddball songs of emotional depth and eerie charm

It’s official: bespectacled oddballs shall inherit the Earth. Mark Oliver Everett has been releasing albums (initially as a solo artist) since 1992, but it wasn’t until Eels’ 1996 debut, Beautiful Freak (which included moderate hits such as Novocaine for the Soul, and Susan’s House), and the use of his songs in acclaimed movies such as American Beauty and Shrek that he began to be noticed by a mainstream audience.

More than 30 years later Eels are successful enough to issue their second best-of collection, and although it might not have the cumulative punch of their first (released in 2008), no one could deny that the songs are anything less than their usual eerily charming selves.

Eels So Good, which spans 15 years and seven studio albums, includes idiosyncratic tracks such as I Like the Way This Is Going (“I like your toothy smile, it never fails to beguile”), Where I’m From (“Three ghosts and I, sitting on the couch last night, catching up”), Today Is the Day (“Today is the day that you see me as a man who will always change”) and The Look You Gave that Guy (“I’m nothing like what I’d like to be, I’m nothing much, I know it’s true”).

Amid the unforced individualism are measures of poignancy and emotional depth that make Everett’s songs a trove to repeatedly dig your hands into.