REVIEW: Elliott Smith, Figure 8 (Dreamworks)
- Wes Long
Okay kids, if you haven't heard of Elliott Smith by now you need to get off your collective assess and run out to your local, hopefully independent, record store and have a listen to one of the few artists whose work is actually sturdy enough to bare the weight of the megaton heavy "next big thing" label.
In 1998, Elliott's "Hey Everybody - Look At Me!!" year, his lovely "Miss Misery" was nominated for an Oscar (Good Will Hunting soundtrack) and he released a sumptuously flawed bouquet of tunes titled XO. Elliott's capable of creating Asian-flu catchy music that's meticulously recorded and produced yet somehow maintains an air of the musty garage and 4-track recorder which started him on this journey when he was fourteen. This undeniably enviable trait often conjures up the ghost of the Fab Four's early recordings, seemingly simple songs teaming with life, and while it worked well on XO this has been perfected on his latest effort; Figure 8.
There's something about these new songs that I can't quite put my finger on. They often remind me of bands that I've loved for years: The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Jason Falkner, Jellyfish, Eric Matthews, The Cavedogs, The Posies, bands of that ilk. Elliot has obviously gone through a musical growth spurt in the last two years. Like all the better artists of his genre he's able to take historical moments of song and make them all his own. The Beatle influences abound, but unlike the splendid yet saccharine-sweet Jellyfish, Smith coats the beater with just enough frosting to keep the listener ever-hungry for more.
Figure 8 reminds me somewhat of Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom because it is a collection of brilliant (yes, brilliant) fairly brief and ever moody tunes. He effortlessly lunges from the urgency of up-tempo songs like "Son of Sam" and "LA," a rocker seemingly constructed from an Eric Matthews blueprint, to the stripped-down perfection of "Somebody That I Used To Know." The taste of Friends/Wild Honey-era Beach Boy's piano and vocal arrangements of "In The Lost And Found (Honky Bach)" are pop perfection with just the right dash of dissonance. The irresistible "Stupidity Tries" is the sort of tune that Jason Falkner excels in writing; clever-as-it-gets pop which builds upon itself until it can't go any further. "Everything Means Nothing To Me" is the track which prompted the connection with Costello's 1982 classic, with its humble piano and vocal intro which eventually careens into a droning drum-heavy Flaming Lips Soft Bulletin-esqe release.
Figure 8 is as good as it gets.
