(ANTI-Records)
The music of Elliott Smith has foreshadowed his death since he debuted with Roman Candle in 1995. He was one of the of the most consistently depressed songwriters in the history of pop music, and due to his all-consuming presentation, many listeners became so desensitized that when he died of two stab wounds to the chest Oct. 21, 2003, they couldn't have been too surprised. His lyrics of backbiting friends, unhealthy habits and self-loathing would have justified any vision of how his death would come: a murder, suicide, an accident. A cause of death was never officially pronounced, and the circumstances are largely unclear; his death is shrouded in a romantic mystery that would make Smith proud.
The posthumous album From A Basement On The Hill, which Smith was working on when he died, does little to strengthen the speculations of murder. It is easily the most blatantly depressed album of his six-album solo career. Stylistically, it's a pastiche of his other works, including the most sparse, desperate material he ever recorded and the most jumbled, rollicking numbers he ever attempted.
In \Coast To Coast,"" the thunderous opener, Smith establishes his characteristic self-doubting attitude with the words ""Nothing new for you to use / I've got no new act to amuse you / Anything I could do would never be good enough for you."" Much of the lyrical content is on this level, poetically expressing topics of being strung out, forgotten and alone. As a whole, this album is less lyrically subtle than prior Elliott Smith albums, with suicidal lines such as ""I can't prepare for death any more than I already have,"" replacing more abstract lines about ""taking the easy way out"" from earlier albums.
The finest moments on From A Basement On The Hill are all centered in the middle, starting with ""Strung Out Again,"" which features screeching guitar work that sounds like The Beatles if George Harrison were as sad as Smith. Smith has garnered comparisons to The Beatles for melody and instrumentation; hints of Harrison's slide guitar can be heard throughout Basement.
A completely executed artistic vision could have made From A Basement On The Hill rank among Smith's best work. What his friends and family released serves as a reminder of the brilliant man the world lost and a testament to his ongoing depression.
