Mark Eitzel: 3The Invisible Man : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Mark Eitzel loves words. He mixes metaphors and twists analogies until sense is wrung out and all that's left is the unsettling feeling that something's rotten in San Francisco. By the time you make it to the album's closer, the jaunty jugband throwaway "Proclaim Your Joy," you figure he's being, uh, ironic. The Invisible Man was recorded primarily at his home and is accordingly quiet and somber. Eitzel's penchant for wallowing in the mire is replaced primarily with sensitive whispers that work best when he's at his most conciliatory (the Jeff Buckley tribute "To the Sea"). Without the structured camaraderie of his old band of misfits -- the critically lauded American Music Club -- each Eitzel solo album has been a misadventure in Hi-Fi. This one's no exception. Weird, disruptive noises and odd drum loops add atmosphere, but they don't save these hookless songs from their monotonous undertow. (ROB O'CONNOR - May 21, 2001)