Electric Eels: The Eyeball Of Hell : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Nihilism, situationism and surrealism might be old news in these post-postmodern times, but when this gaggle of Clevelanders began their short-but-stunning assault on the public consciousness back in 1973, jaws dropped and fists flew. The word "punk" wasn't yet in common use, but there's little doubt that the songs contained on this retrospective outstrip just about anything from that first wave in terms of both outrage and -- no pun intended -- raw power. Guitarist John Morton strangled an amazing array of extra-terrestrial sounds -- think Albert Ayler duetting with a wood planer -- from his guitar on avowedly confrontational songs like "You're Full of Shit," "Cold Meat" and "Agitated." Underpinned by the primordial thump of drummer Nick Knox -- who'd later go on to join the Cramps -- the two-minute stomps are plenty unsettling, their arty surface shot through with closed-fist punches (kind of like a cocktail party at Jackson Pollock's house). Topping it all off, vocalist Dave E -- a frail, sickly fellow prone to festooning his clothing with rat traps and begging audience members to try something -- delivered strings of disconnected one-liners ("Sometimes I think that the whole world stinks/I don't know what to think/I just hate it") in a whine that makes Jad Fair sound like Glenn Danzig. Ugly? At times. Hilarious? You bet. But -- as the Eels, who broke up before the Ramones hit the recording studio, note in one of the many quasi-theme songs contained here -- more than anything, "It's Artastic!"

DAVID SPRAGUE
(October 22, 2001)