Elliott Smith

From A Basement On The Hill

There For You

Review Score:

(8/10)
I'm really not prone to entertaining myself with 2nd guessing what Elliott Smith's eventual intentions were for these songs. I'm also not interested in analyzing the production. What I can tell you is that BASEMENT has exceeded my expectations. Like all his best work, I'm finding it a real chore getting it out of my cd player.

"Coast To Coast" starts off with this distorted orchestra & then bursts into a wall of sound. Starting things off on an uncharacteristically, aggressive note. I think the heart of this album can best be summed up in what I find to be it's most addictive track, "King's Crossing". "This is the place where time reverses/and where dead men talk to all the pretty nurses". Or more simply, "cos' I took my own insides out". For a night on the town, presumably? Good one, Elliott.

There's not much for real fans to be upset about here. Let alone disgusted (as I've read in some other reviews). The aching fragility of "Twilight". The perverse jauntiness of "Memory Lane". "Let's Get Lost" is an aptly beautiful place to do so. & "Last Hour" sounds like it quietly tip-toed off one of his early albums.

BASEMENT is by no means perfect. No posthumous album is going to be. But to these ears, it doesn't excactly sound all dressed up for an open casket funeral. All I can say is, the end results are a lot darker & somewhat more diverse than FIGURE 8. I've been listening to this guy ever since ROMAN CANDLE came out. EITHER/OR is one of my favorite albums of the 90's. Those catchy Beatle-sque hooks. Lonesome fingerpicking. Scathing lyrical insights. That uncanny knack for stumbling upon a universal truth & then shrugging it off. I'm sure most fans can agree on where his real strengths lie. Well, inbetween all the gushing odes of blind devotion & self-righteous outcries of disappointment, it's here waiting for you. When you get around to it. Excuse me, gotta go hit the PLAY button again.

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