Eels – Tomorrow Morning

The final instalment in a trilogy which has brought us the introspective Hombre Lobo and End Times could well be subtitled ‘After the Night Before’. Mark Everett is in typically reflective mood, occasionally boisterously good-humoured (particularly when speaking of a faux-messianic complex in The Man), but wary it could all turn to shit at any moment. It seems the love hinted at in Hombre Lobo no longer goes unrequited and Everett uses the jaunty Baby Loves Me to announce the news, even if that news is ‘unlikely, but true’.

Spectacular Girl – melodic, gentle, and reminiscent in tone of Beautiful Freak – is an unwavering homage to said love, whilst Oh So Lovely, with a fairground carousel providing the soundtrack, takes said reverence to almost religious levels. In case we didn’t quite get the message, Everett goes all Lonnie Donegan on Looking Up, rhyming simply that ‘now I’m feeling sweet, back on my feet’. Who could begrudge? [Wilbur Kane]