Blinking Lights and Other Revelations

Blinking Lights and Other Revelations is a set about “God and all the questions related to the subject of God,” says its creator, E. A homemade epic, it’s an imaginative, emotional reflection on the condition of living, recorded mostly in Everett’s Los Angeles basement over a period of several years. Sprawling over its two discs on CD and triple LPs on vinyl are songs about faith, responsibility, growing up, dignity, disappointment, comfort, hope and renewal. Echoes of Everett’s Virginia youth are heard during a fever-dreamed summer night’s picnic inside the Civil War-era graveyard near his family’s house (“In the Yard, Behind the Church), while the engineer of a dying travel industry laments the long gone Washington and Old Dominion Railroad that once ran nearby (“Railroad Man”). Finally completed in 2004, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations rides a wide aural spectrum of sometimes disparate, ghostly sounds-from the saxophone sextet gospel of “Son Of A Bitch,” to the surf-rock operatic wail of “Old Shit/New Shit.” There’s the apocalyptic fire and brimstone of “The Other Shoe,” and then there’s the Jackie Wilson-in-cyberspace existential celebration of “Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living).” The album is full of unusual instrumentation and some notable guest stars. One song (“Last Time We Spoke”) features Everett’s hound dog, Bobby, Jr., howling a lonesome solo. A few songs later, Eels-fan-turned-collaborator Tom Waits cries a solo-literally-(“Going Fetal”). Later, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck (making his second appearance on an Eels album) plays dobro, guitar and bass (the Buck co-written “To Lick Your Boots”), and on an album that prominently features the autoharp on several songs, it’s exciting to know that the king of rock and roll autoharp, The Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian, makes a rare appearance, playing autoharp on one track (“Dusk: A Peach In the Orchard,” co-written by Sebastian).