End Times Lakota ***

Think you've had a tough year? You don't know pain until you know Mark E Everett's pain, and believe me, you don't want to know pain like that.

Eels' eighth studio album sees the maudlin maestro coming to terms with a break-up, and scrabbling around for a good reason to carry on. From the first ominous chords of The Beginning, you just know it's all going to end in tears and much more besides. A Line In The Dirtis a bleakly sketched kitchen-sink drama, and In My Younger Daysfinds our heartbroken hero feeling just too old for this divorce shit. Little Bird, a simple nursery-rhyme ditty with a dark centre, was – somewhat prematurely – voted one of the 25 top tracks of 2009 by AOL Music, and it certainly gets across E's core message that this love malarkey is strictly for the birds. www.eelstheband.com

Download Tracks: Little Bird, A Line In The Dirt, End Times