For a decade plus, Mark Oliver Everett, the auteur behind this raggedy power trio, has been singing bay-at-the-moon stompers and ballads in a voice twisted by heartsickness into something not quite human. Everett's songwriting hasn't always kept pace with his musical and literary ambitions. But these tales of frustrated desire are vividly sketched, with the Eels delivering muddy roadhouse rockers. The ballads really shine. In "Ordinary Man," Everett resigns himself to the life of an hombre solo: "I'd rather be alone than try to be someone that I'm not."