Something as delicately balanced as the acoustic song is dangerous to attempt. It\u2019s got to sound simplistic without being too simple; heartfelt without bordering on uncomfortably trite; find a balance between melody and vocals while at the same time coming in around the three-minute mark. In venturing into the arena of no frills, it\u2019s easy to fall prey to the just plain banal (see James Morrison). It\u2019s a lot of work for a medium so overly worked. <\/p>\n
The back catalogue of Elliott Smith plays out like a portfolioed testament of his versatility. Albums such as his debut Roman Candle<\/i>, the self-titled Elliott Smith<\/i> and Either\/Or<\/i> cemented his typical acoustic style, while Smith\u2019s fourth release XO <\/i>marked a departure from this expected style of folk, seeming almost unfittingly heavy in comparison. Figure 8,<\/i> the last album to be released before Smith\u2019s death in 2003, went in the direction of piano folk, another niche that seemed ever so slightly unsuited. 2007 saw the release of New Moon,<\/i> a two-disc posthumous collection of unreleased material by the songwriter.<\/p>\n
New Moon,<\/i> with its fitting title, circles back to the bare sound of early Elliott Smith, with many of the tracks taken from sessions for his Either\/Or<\/i> album. <\/p>\n
\u201cHigh Times\u201d is probably one of the most haunting moments on the album, eerily brimming with disdain and melancholy in the vein of Smith\u2019s earlier \u201cNeedle In The Hay.\u201d The song is built up through verses of whispered vocals and palpitating strums before meeting a crescendo of symbols and the layered screams of a whispered chorus. A cover of Big Star\u2019s ballad of adolescent love \u201cThirteen\u201d provides the closing track for the first disc of the album. Sung in such childlike delicacy by Smith, it\u2019s hard not to believe that the song is not his own. <\/p>\n
The second disc of the album seems more experimental than the formulaic style encountered on the first, like the organ-centred and the use of sleigh bells on \u201cSeen How Things Are Hard.\u201d \u201cAlmost Over\u201d showcases Smith\u2019s habits of complex picking style. Its tense guitar matched with the lyrics \u201can iron will to walk the walk \/ And a glass jaw that can\u2019t be moved to talk \/ Black eyes always watch the clock \/ The worst part\u2019s almost over\u201d creating something dark, anxious and frantic.<\/p>\n
New Moon<\/i> lives up to the standards set by Smith\u2019s earlier work; many of the tracks could easily have been included on their respective albums without breaking stride, but as a whole, the album fails to cohere as well as its predecessors. To be fair, this may only be seen as a drawback if you\u2019re as pedantic as me and haughtily fly the flag for those in the camp of \u201cAlbums should be Albums.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea of pressing together songs that were left behind to begin with doesn\u2019t always sound so promising, but this disc safely ensures that some great material from such an impressive artist hasn\u2019t slipped through the cracks. Obviously the album doesn\u2019t prove the best introduction to Elliott Smith, but it shouldn\u2019t disappoint those already familiar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":29882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6023],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41503","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-elliott-smith","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41503"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41503"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}