Critically acclaimed rock group EELS’ highly anticipated new album Earth to Dora is out now via E Works/[PIAS]. In celebration of the album’s release, the band is premiering a new video for the feel-good hit of the feel-worst year, “Are We Alright Again.” The Greg Barnes-directed one-take video shows a typical EELS fan finding solace in EELS music. Shot on 35mm film, it stars Jon Hamm, Mike Mitchell, Eric Edelstein, Caroline Bloom and Jude B. Lanston. EELS leader Mark Oliver Everett, a.k.a. E, says, “We could all use a little comfort from the past year. Perhaps this song can provide a little for you like it does for the guy in this video.”
Recorded at the EELS’ Los Feliz, California studio, Earth to Dora is produced by E and performed by E, Koool G Murder, The Chet and P-Boo. The album continues to receive extensive critical praise:
“[Earth To Dora is] a song cycle that finds hope and love amid despair and desperation .”
“Earth To Dora is stirring and heartfelt, filled with relatable reflections
and swooning melodies.”“songs for the unheralded day-to-day existence sung by someone so adept at
doing so that they sound monumental, eloquent and full…”“Everett has matured into a songwriter to stand up alongside his heroes…”
“Their sweetest-natured album ever.”
Speaking about the new record, E says, “These songs came about just before the pandemic hit and changed everything. I’m hoping they can be, maybe kind of soothing or something. To hear songs dealing with things we are dreaming about getting back to. Or maybe people are dealing with some of the topics right now as well. Just one song was done in the thick of the early pandemic days, ‘Are We Alright Again,’ which is kind of a quarantine daydream I desperately needed to have.”
Including the surprise single releases “Baby Let’s Make It Real” and “Who You Say You Are,” Earth to Dora marks the 13th full length EELS album and first since 2018’s The Deconstruction. Their first album in four years, The Deconstruction was released to widespread acclaim and described as “an album to treasure” by MOJO, “a reflection on both the pain and joy of life” by NPR’s “Fresh Air” and “a career-straddling greatest hits collection, in which all the ‘hits’ are brand new,” by CLASH. The Los Angeles Times added, “It seems ridiculous to describe the new EELS work as ‘a headphone record,’ because, in the era of earbuds, most are. Yet here we are, lost in the intricate melodies, arrangements and textures swirling through The Deconstruction.”
EELS have had one of the most consistently acclaimed careers in music. The ever-changing project of principal singer/songwriter E (Mark Oliver Everett), EELS have released 12 studio albums since their 1996 debut, Beautiful Freak. In 2008, E published his highly-acclaimed book Things the Grandchildren Should Know and starred in the award-winning Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives documentary about the search to understand his quantum physicist father, Hugh Everett III.
2015 saw the release of the band’s extraordinary Royal Albert Hall live album and concert film. In the same year, the band’s “Fresh Blood” served as the theme song to HBO’s “The Jinx” and from 2016 to 2018 E appeared in Judd Apatow’s Netflix original series “Love.” EELS released their 12th studio album, and first in four years, The Deconstruction in April 2018 and toured America and Europe in 2018 and 2019.
