By Jesse Cataldo

The moments that precede the decision to release a double album have to be ones of either intense confidence or extreme laziness. When Mark Oliver Everett (call him E, he likes it), decided to release Blinking Lights And Other Revelations without a bit of pruning, what exactly was he thinking? Was it “screw that, all of these songs are great.” Or was it closer to “I don’t care, just throw all of it on there.” We may never know, but either way he expects us to listen to it.

The sentiment of the album tends to favor the latter. Blinking Lights is devoid of most of the grandiose machinations that characterize your usual double discs. There are no sweeping orchestral interludes, no drawn out clumps of instrumental filler, no concept; in fact, there’s barely any pretension at all. The only binding tie is the constant reappearance of the melody of “Theme From Blinking Lights,” which pops up from time to time to remind you that this is all connected somehow, a pretty thin connection for over ninety minutes of material.

This is a double album that doesn’t even feel like one, which begs the question, why? Music may be the only place on earth where double shouldn’t have a positive connotation, mostly because of the long list of grievances against these swelled piles of indulgence. The biggest problem remains that, they’re rarely as compelling as they think they are. Also, they’re heavy, expensive and they do not fit into standard CD racks without screwing up your entire alphabetical organization system. Yeah, you get double the songs, but what does it matter if you don’t end the first disc begging for more?

So even if Blinking Lights doesn’t share much in common with your usual double album, it’s still plagued by the same problems. There are thirty-three songs; some are bad, some are good, most are in between. The racing excitement of “The Other Shoe” is balanced out by the kitschy sing-a-long of “Going Fetal,” a song whose tongue is pushed so far into its cheek that it gags itself. For every “From Which I Came, A Magic World” (great), there’s a “Theme For A Pretty Girl” (eh). This results in an album that just wanders around for an hour and half, expecting you to follow it. So do yourself a favor, download this (if that’s even possible anymore), load it into your favorite media player and trim off the fat by hand.