On Friday, the home page for the indie-rock band Eels changed to feature a countdown clock and the announcement that "End Times Are Coming." The clock seemed to be winding down to a specific moment in January 2010. It all sounded vaguely ominous, but now we know what's going on -- the band will release their next album, End Times, on January 19.
End Times will closely follow the group's last record, Hombre Lobo, which dropped June 2. That's an amazingly quick turnaround between records, but it's not entirely surprising. Unlike other recent Eels albums, frontman E didn't immediately jump on the road to support Hombre Lobo and when I spoke to him in late June, he didn't seem all that interested in touring. "I'm just not feeling it really," he said about gigging. "I don't want to disrespect the audience by doing something I'm not fully invested in right now ... I just don't feel like doing it at this moment."
With the speedy arrival of End Times, perhaps what E was really feeling was making another record. Because of its provocative title, it's tempting to speculate whether End Times will be another character-driven concept album like Hombre Lobo, which was about a fictional wolfman on a quest for love. But then again, one shouldn't necessarily put too much stock in an Eels album title -- after all, this is a group that named one of their records Shootenanny!
See more upcoming rock music releases
Follow Rock Music on Twitter
Photo courtesy Vagrant.
Comments