Artist: Elliott Smith
Album: From a Basement on the Hill
Release Date: October 19, 2004 (ANTI-)
Buzz Factor: 4/5
Elliott Smith’s sixth and final studio album belongs to the singer-songwriter in name only. Mixed and released posthumously, without the assistance of the engineer who worked with Smith to record the tracks, it is less a reflection of the grand, double-disc magnum opus Smith had intended, but rather a reflection of the best interpretations of Smith his friends and family could offer. Not that those involved with bringing the record out into the world were disingenuous or that the songs on From a Basement on the Hill are not authentically Smith’s, but recording engineer David McConnell has admitted that the record Smith would have put out, had he still been around to do it, would have turned out quite differently. This tension opens a dialogue between Smith and his own audience.
McConnell elaborated in an interview with The Confabulators that, had Smith been at the helm of production and mixing on the final version of From a Basement on the Hill, the aesthetic would likely have been “more in-your-face.” Nowhere on the album is this confrontational attitude more present than the lead track, “Coast to Coast.” The song features the loud, distortion-heavy guitars Smith gravitated towards on previous records Figure 8 and XO, yet the drone of Elliott’s voice, as the amplified lead in the background mimics the same melodic line, turn this familiar guitar tone into a much more sinister snarl. The drums are more aggressive than what we are used to on previous releases, with eighth note high hat hits and a loose snare lending a gritty, frenetic quality. The blues riffing over the chorus also contributes to the overall tone of confrontation and aggression on the lead track—yet that is the only place on From a Basement on the Hill where McConnell’s description remains apt.
Much of the remainder of the record falls back on the more familiar acoustic textures present on Smith’s earlier work. The songs are neutered, robbed of the loud energy Smith reportedly sought to infuse into this album. Perhaps they are the remains of the bare outlines Smith was working to lay down in preparation to record something more. Regardless, it exists as the impression label agents had of Smith, a relic of the constant inability of others to understand Smith or his vision.
Sadly, From a Basement on the Hill is not the grand work Smith once envisioned, and it fails to leave the legacy of Smith’s career and abilities as a musician that the late, great songwriter surely would have preferred. Instead, the record preserves the legacy of Smith as the misunderstood and tortured label product, reduced to a commodity.