The Eels at the St James

The Eels' songs feel as if they are from the pages of a diary recording the writer's permanent melancholy.

He was was dressed up for the occasion and so were his songs. It was the first visit by Californian singer-songwriter Mark "E" Everett, who has traded under the Eels banner for six albums as its one "deeply troubled permanent member", as it said in an introductory promo film.

Bespectacled and bearded, he emerged in a black suit and hat, with silver-topped cane and fat cigar, proving that the Russian novelist look never goes out of style.
Instead of a band, the guitar and keyboard-playing Everett had brought an ensemble - an all-woman string quartet supplemented by multi-instrumentalist mates Big Al and The Chet.

Everett mocked his low-voltage set-up throughout with an are-you-ready-to-rock running gag answering the rhetorical question with variations on: "Ladies and gentlemen, you know that's not possible."

But what the night lacked in decibels and dynamics it made up for in sheer numbers of tunes.

Although packed with lyrics of anxiety, heartbreak and mourning - many about the deaths of members of his family - not many of Everett's songs make it to the three-minute mark.

And with the backbone of the set the recent Blinking Lights and Other Revelations double album, the 90-minute performance rattled through 30-plus songs.

It made for a disarming mix - the chamber rock arrangements gave musical intimacy but the songs felt as if they were flicking through the pages of a diary recording the writer's permanent melancholy.

It was compelling, but on the whole a little repetitive. And the bare-bones arrangements tended to expose the similar frameworks of Everett's songs.

The first half of the show wasn't helped by a sound system which crackled badly through all that acoustic fidelity, but the second half was lifted by a sense of spontaneity creeping into proceedings as well as some very fine musical-saw playing by The Chet - who also managed guitar, pedal steel, piano and packing-case percussion. And the rattling fun-songs of the encores - the audience-performer contractual arrangement of which Everett neatly mocked - helped end it all on a note of uplift and hope.