''The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett'' is the eleventh studio album by American

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

Eels Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

, released on April 21, 2014 by record label

E Works This is a discography of Eels and other musical projects of Mark Oliver Everett, such as MC Honky. Albums Studio albums Live albums Compilations Extended plays Singles Promotional singles *"Climbing to the Moon" (1998) *"3 Speed" (1998) ...

. The album was produced by frontman

Mark Oliver Everett Mark Oliver Everett (born April 10, 1963) is the American lead singer, songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist and sometimes drummer of the rock band Eels. Also known as E, he is known for writing songs tackling subjects such as death, loneliness, d ...

Reception

''The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett'' received generally positive reviews from critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the album has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 70 out of 100 based on 23 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Phil Mongredien of ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' wrote: "The subject matter may not be as harrowing as the real-life inspiration for some of his earlier work (most notably ''

Electro-Shock Blues ''Electro-Shock Blues'' is the second studio album by American Rock music, rock band Eels (band), Eels. It was released in the United Kingdom on September 21, 1998, and October 20 in the United States by record label DreamWorks Records, DreamWork ...

''), but this is still a powerful and emotionally coherent set." Lior Phillips of

Consequence of Sound ''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television. In addition, the website also features the Festival Outlook ...

was unfavorable, writing: "What ''The Cautionary Tales'' needs is a prudent pruning. This album struggles to appear deeper than a common puddle, and while E's previous penchant for sharing has given him a brilliant book of songs from which to draw, I wonder how long he'll stay floating on the surface."

Track listing

Written by E, except as noted #"Where I'm At" (E, arr. by The Chet and P-Boo) – 1:42 #"Parallels" – 3:16 #"Lockdown Hurricane" (E; arr. by P-Boo) – 3:30 #"Agatha Chang" (E; arr. by P-Boo) – 3:28 #"A Swallow in the Sun" (E, The Chet; arr. by The Chet) – 3:37 #"Where I'm From" (E, P-Boo) – 2:49 #"Series of Misunderstandings" – 3:23 #"Kindred Spirit" (E, P-Boo) – 2:54 #"Gentlemen's Choice" (E, P-Boo; arr. by P-Boo) – 2:36 #"Dead Reckoning" (E, P-Boo; arr. by P-Boo) – 2:29 #"Answers" (E; arr. by P-Boo) – 2:39 #"Mistakes of My Youth" (E, The Chet; arr. by The Chet) – 4:57 #"Where I'm Going" (E; arr. by The Chet) – 3:04 Deluxe Edition bonus disc #"To Dig It" #"Lonely Lockdown Hurricane" (E; orchestral arrangement by P-Boo) #"Bow Out" (E, P-Boo) #"A Good Deal" #"Good Morning Bright Eyes" #"Millicent Don't Blame Yourself" (E, Koool G Murder) #"Thanks I Guess" (E, P-Boo) #"On the Ropes" (Live WNYC) (E, The Chet, Koool G Murder) #"Accident Prone" (Live WNYC) (E, P-Boo) #"I'm Your Brave Little Soldier (Live WNYC) #"Fresh Feeling" (Live KCRW) (E, Koool G Murder) #"Trouble with Dreams" (Live KCRW) #"Oh Well" (Live KCRW) (Peter Green)

Personnel

Eels * The Chet * E * Knuckles * Koool G Murder * P-Boo

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett, The 2014 albums Albums produced by Mark Oliver Everett Eels (band) albums Vagrant Records albums