The Eels : Elctroshock Blues

I frequent a little record shop called "Graywhale".  It is my equivalent to Norm from "Cheers" I suppose, except no one actually shouts my name when I walk into the store.  The trouble for me is that there is so many CD's and so little money that is currently residing in my bank account (that is until that estranged Nigerian princess makes good on her word once her father's back in power).  Recently I made a trek there to browse/peruse the aisles as usual and stumbled across a CD that I had been looking for quite some time.  Perhaps a small back story first to explain.
When I was about 16 my friends and I playing music together because a new bass player moved into our neighborhood.  He was big into punk (leather boots, patched jean jackets, etc, etc) and opened my eyes to a lot of new music.  Most of the punk stuff I never really latched onto, but some of the other ones developed to be some of my favorite stuff to listen to on my practically vacant ipod at the time.  One of those was a song by the band the "Eels" named "Last Stop: This Town".  I had always wanted the CD that it came on, but had never come across it until last Tuesday.
As I paid for my newly acquired CD entitled "Electroshock Blues" the cashier decided to give me the low down on this CD.  He was a burly man with a large beard and smelling slightly of a species of cannibas.  AKA your average Graywhale employee, who I will now refer to as Brucie.  Brucie told me that the CD was written after the lead singer and songwriter's sister died and his mother was diagnosed with cancer.  Brucie informed me that this CD is amazing and even in his top 5 CD's of all time.  Of all time Brucie?  Really?  Alright you have my attention.  Brucie's last words as I left the store were "Don't go skipping around on that record okay!?  You listen to all of it all the way through!".  Deal.
For the record I like this CD.  I really do.  Top 5 worthy, no, but definitely worth a listen.  It struck me originally as if Sufjan Stevens was singing at a funeral.  The songs are about sad things, but many of them have awesome music backing them up.  The songs are catchy, my favorites being  "3 Speed", "Climbing to the Moon", and "The Medication is Wearing Off".  The singer Mark Oliver Everett (known as "E" apparently) doesn't really sing necessarily.  He kind of sing-speaks, a new word I'm trying out.  There are no guitar solos or drum fills, yet the guitar is catchy and the drums are clean.  That being said there songs that I can't get behind.  The auto-harp song "Dead of Winter" feels like you are watching thick molasses drip from the bottle or ice melt and "Baby Genius" is a little too ambient for me, but luckily they are both stuck in between other good songs so the actual flow of the CD isn't really disrupted, just slowed down.
Overall my rating of this CD is: Tasty.  Tasty licks and material.  Recommended for light listening and "Dead of Winter" is recommended for narcolepsy.

Dr. Jimmy.