If misery loves company, it will be well occupied with the 33 songs sprawled across this double album of death and light. Mark Oliver Everett, otherwise known as E, has been making harrowing pop music for years, all sewn together with a needle that cuts casual sentiment to shreds. Everett is hardcore in delivering the ugly truth, but his music is redeemed by a bruising vulnerability and gallows humor. His voice helps, too: He sounds like he chews rocks for breakfast, and you can feel the scars, yet there’s warmth in every word.
Blinking Lights And Other Revelations was an eight-year travail, a summation of feelings regarding Everett’s mother, who died of cancer, his sister, who killed herself, and his cousin, a flight attendant on the Pentagon-bound plane on September 11. That heavy load fuels songs such as the piano ballad “Suicide Life” and the noise-rocker “Mother Mary”. There are also songs of self-doubt (“Checkout Time”), rage (“The Other Shoe”) which juggle tragedy and comedy like fireballs.
Despite the opportunity, Everett doesn’t use the sprawl to make stunning stylistic leaps. Instead, the moods continually churn. He is a smart enough songwriter not to cheapen the big questions with hollow heartache; that’s how the album’s most endearing love song arrives with the title “Ugly Love”, and a song about curling up in the fetal position (“Going Fetal”) becomes a dance-pop freakout, with baby bleats courtesy of Tom Waits. On “Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living)”, a spastic slice of Casio pop with squawking horns, he sings, “Have you ever made love to a beautiful girl/Made you feel like it’s not such a bad world?” and the upbeat mood washes over like a tonic.
By journey’s end there is light in the distance, but it’s a fascinating upheaval to get there. Blinking Lights deserves to stand alongside the psychological mining of John Lennon for its world-weary humor and unwavering stare into the abyss.