Eels - Hombre Lobo_ 12 Songs of Desire [mp3-160-2009]

HOMBRE LOBO: An American Werewolf


It's been four years since the double EELS album BLINKING LIGHTS AND OTHER REVELATIONS. If that album was about the human spirit, the new EELS album HOMBRE LOBO is about animal instinct. "I wanted to write a set of songs about desire. That dreadful, intense want that gets you into all sorts of situations that can change your life in big ways," says EELS leader Mark Oliver Everett, aka E.

"I didn't want to write a bunch of blatantly autobiographical songs about a lonely old indie rocker, so I thought it would be more interesting if it came from this character," says Everett, who now sports a beard even mightier than the one grown during the release of the 2001 EELS album SOULJACKER. "Maybe the way people have been looking at me on the street colored who this character would be."

"I was thinking 'what happens when the young 'Dog Faced Boy' (of the SOULJACKER album) grows up?' -- He tries to function in society. But he can't get past the fact that he's still likened to an animal," Everett says. "I was thinking about where he goes from there as he gets older, and it occurred to me that the best a dog faced boy could hope for would be to grow into something that can just squeak by in society with some semblance of dignity. I figured the best he could do was to become a dignified old werewolf."

Alternately tender and terrifying, HOMBRE LOBO features twelve songs from the point of view of a hirsute man enraptured by the beauty of his muse, and frustrated by his desires. Sometimes our anti-hero is melancholic, wishing only for a look his way ("That Look You Give That Guy"). Other times his instincts overtake him with bloodcurdling howls ("Fresh Blood"). And sometimes he can only celebrate the infinite beauty he desires ("In My Dreams," "Tremendous Dynamite").

"It's about the beginning. About what kind of shape you're in when you're alone and you don't want to be alone. What steers you to want to not be alone. The desperate need to connect. And if you're isolated, that can be a real predicament," says Everett. "Sometimes your instincts become unbearable." As he sings in the song "My Timing Is Off":

Believe it or not
We Don't have a choice in matters of the heart
Just gotta be brave enough
To love and let yourself be loved


At HOMBRE LOBO's halfway point there's a glimpse into the depth of our anti-hero's desire and belief in his capabilities:

The longing is a friend
A way to stay close
And feel like she's here
And feel like she knows
That when I say I would die for her
It's not just words
I really would
And to make the world a safer place for her
Well I believe I really could

In the album's closing track, he only wants the object of his desire to see that his differences are actually an asset, and the fact that he's no "Ordinary Man," is something to be celebrated, not scorned:


And it's misunderstood
What you've heard about me
I see why you would doubt me
But know this
No one has a right
Until they've fought my fight
To understand just where I'm coming from
And it's that fight that brought me here today
Exactly as I am
No ordinary man

It's not like Everett has disappeared in the four years since BLINKING LIGHTS. Following that album's release there have been three EELS world tours, all widely differing in scope, the release of the EELS with strings LIVE AT TOWN HALL album and concert film, the decade of EELS collections: MEET THE EELS: ESSENTIAL EELS 1996-2006 and USELESS TRINKETS: B-sides, Unreleased, Rarities and Soundtracks. In 2007 Everett published his acclaimed autobiography THINGS THE GRANDCHILDREN SHOULD KNOW and the BBC produced the multi-award winning PARALLEL WORLDS, PARALLEL LIVES documentary film about E and his quantum physicist father, Hugh Everett III, which was broadcast on PBS' NOVA series in the U.S., fall of 2008.

"All this time during the making of all these other projects, I was always writing and recording music. Every time I branch out and try something else, I think it will be some kind of relief to take a break from music. But I always come back with my tail between my legs, because there's nothing I enjoy more than making music. The other projects have been great experiences for me, but this is what I love to do."



01 prizefighter
02 that look you give that guy
03 lilac breeze
04 in my dreams
05 tremendous dynamite
06 the longing
07 fresh blood
08 what's a fella gotta do
09 my timing is off
10 all the beautiful things
11 beginner's luck
12 ordinary man