E-Works/Vagrant

Over the last 18 months, alt-rock stalwart and quantum physicist’s son Mark Oliver Everett (aka “E”) and his group Eels have enraptured its fans in the throes of a recurring album cycle that delves into some of the deepest studies into the human condition pop music has provided for its audience yet. And following the primal id of Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire and the deflated ego of divorce and growing old of End Times comes the third and final installment of this Eel-pocalypse Now trilogy, an upbeat collection of songs called Tomorrow Morning that focuses on the super ego of wisdom and redemption. “My Beloved Monster” aside, you would have to hark back ten years to 2000’s Daisies of the Galaxy to find a more pop-oriented record in the Eels cache than this 14-song collection, which finds Everett and longtime rhythm section Koool G. Murder on bass and Knuckles on drums relying heavily on elements of electronic music to float the buoyancy of snappy, vibrant cuts like “Spectacular Girl” and “The Man”. And though it will forever be associated as part of a trilogy with two other albums that aren’t anywhere near as good, that should not stop you from placing Tomorrow Morning alongside Electro-Shock Blues and Souljacker as one of the very best titles in the Eels catalog to date.