AMG Review of Daisies of the Galaxy

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

The Eels were always a vehicle for a songwriter called E, but by the point of their third album, 2000's Daisies of the Galaxy, they were his and his alone. The transition occurred on the previous album, 1998's Electro-Shock Blues, where E exorcised the demons that had haunted him since the death of his family (his parents from cancer, his sister from suicide). Such an intimate, tortured record is hardly the province of a band, and when the Eels came out of it, they were just -- E. When it came time to deliver a follow-up, E couldn't help but deliver a lighter album. Unlike its predecessor, Daisies of the Galaxy doesn't play as if the listener was invading E's private diary; instead, it feels as if one is rummaging through his sketchbook. And, like many sketchbooks, there are some moments that have blossomed and others that remain just an intriguing, unformed idea.