From 1996s album Beautiful freak to 2001s Souljacker Eels didn’t put a foot wrong. The four albums over those six years manage to portray a diverse and vibrant collection of musical styles with heartfelt lyrics that portray a vast collection of the human experience.

Daisies Of The Galaxy as an album provides a lighter more joyous instrumentation than its predecessor Electro Shock Blues with traditional orchestration as a driving force. However the lyrics still reflect a soul searching darkness, the driving factors On Electro Shock Blues. This time they are more abstract, from a raw pain they have developed into a mature one. Emotions with hindsight and experience, The bitter-sweet feelings on Electro Shock Blues were divided on a track by track basis but by Daisys Of The Galaxy they are ingrained as one and this is exemplified by the title song from the album.

Wrapped in both a sweet nostalgia and a bitter loneliness the song starts with isolated guitar and vocals but soon blossoms into exquisite instrumentation from brass and strings, the track drifts away to its conclusion as the vocals blend with more layers of instrumentation including woodwind and fade into obscurity leaving both a feeling of joy and uncertainty.

It’s rare for a track to have so much power for me but Eels manage to achieve it many times throughout their works. Daisys Of the Galaxy is an album and a track that I will continue to return to for years to come:

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