Every track on Basement is a highlight.
The record is strong and radiant, if not always upbeat ... One of the best he ever made.
While it's likely that From a Basement is cleaner than what Smith and McConnell intended, it is much sparer than Figure 8, and it feels at once more adventurous, confident, and warmer than its predecessor.
The album is, in short, phenomenal. It certainly doesn’t match the beauty and heartbreak of Either/Or (1997), but it manages to recapture the spirit of that record while properly articulating the orchestration that Elliott had been working with for Figure 8 and XO (1998).
From A Basement… returns us to the more unfiltered, denuded sound of his earlier Kill Rock Stars records.
That makes From A Basement On The Hill the most fitting of testaments – a flawed, courageous, beautiful and intimately human portrait of the self. Simple, sweet, melodic songs about the heart. Where it hurts. And the hope that things will get better.
The most disheartening thing about From a Basement on the Hill is its plainness-- it's neither a perfect record (and not one of Smith's best) nor the kind of colossal disaster that could be angrily pinned on money-hungry handlers and desperate fans.
Elliott Smith - 6/7
Although I definitely think that Elliott would've managed to round the project out nicely if he'd had the time to, I'm pestered by an unshakable feeling that "From a Basement on the Hill" would've still been a low point in his discography for me even if it weren't posthumously released.
Honestly, I just don't get nearly as much from this record as I do from the others. Save for a couple songs, I rarely connect with its lyrics the way I did so easily with ... read more
~ELLIOTT SMITH DEEP DIVE 6/7~
Elliott’s most underwhelming record. This was a posthumous release, but that has really nothing to do with this record being his weakest. It mostly has to do with the production and writing.
First of all, the production feels kind of messy. A lot of the instrumentals on here don’t mix that well, with them kind of clashing in a weird way. And the whole thing sounds mucky and not that well polished. However it's not that much of a glaring issue if you ... read more
Even disregarding the fact this album was posthumously released it’s hard to shake the feeling that ‘From a Basement on the Hill’ would always have come across as an outlier among Smith’s canon - prior to this the beauty of his music painted him as passive and contemplative, even if his words often betrayed his ugly feelings.
Here the lyrics are more straightforward in their cynicism and the sounds are starting to mirror his inner turmoil all too closely. We’re ... read more
This album is a very good send-off to a fantastic and creative musician. This album has, in my opinion, some of his best works, like King's Crossing and Twilight. I love this album and everything on it.
1 | Coast to Coast 5:33 | 91 |
2 | Let's Get Lost 2:27 | 86 |
3 | Pretty (Ugly Before) 4:45 | 90 |
4 | Don't Go Down 4:34 | 84 |
5 | Strung Out Again 3:12 | 85 |
6 | A Fond Farewell 3:57 | 92 |
7 | King's Crossing 4:57 | 89 |
8 | Ostrich & Chirping 0:33 | 61 |
9 | Twilight 4:29 | 92 |
10 | A Passing Feeling 3:32 | 85 |
11 | The Last Hour 3:27 | 87 |
12 | Shooting Star 6:01 | 83 |
13 | Memory Lane 2:30 | 84 |
14 | Little One 3:14 | 85 |
15 | A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to be Free 4:32 | 88 |