Eels (album)

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	8.0/10[5]
Metacritic	89/100[6]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[7]
Far Out	[1]
The Line of Best Fit	8/10[8]
Paste	8.3/10[2]
Pitchfork	8.3/10[3]

Eels received a score of 89 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic based on four critics' reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".^[6] Daniel Felsenthal of Pitchfork awarded the album the accolade "Best New Music", saying that albeit their music seems "bare-bones", it includes a variety of "unexpected" instruments, such as "Mellotron, banjo, Casio drums". Felsenthal thought a recurring theme throughout the record was "motion" as it is "constantly changing" and "speeding along". They concluded that the trio remakes "the future in the image of the past".^[3]

Handing out the same score in a review for Paste, Ben Salmon praised not only their ability of "writing great songs" but to push their music into "interesting, unexpected places". Salmon calls Eels a compilation of "sharp zig-zags and even sharper hooks" and drew comparisons to artists such as Neutral Milk Hotel, Animal Collective, That Dog. and the Beach Boys.^[2] Lloyd Bolton at The Line of Best Fit called Eels "good chaos" with an overflow of "ideas" that alternate between "short-form experiments" and "more developed songs" that keeps piquing the listener's interest.