LP – Black Vinyl

Elliott Smith‘s Either / Or represents a stylistic and songwriting breakthrough, taking it to the “next level,” creatively speaking. This singer/songwriter can say more with a whisper than most folks can with a scream. The gently insinuating despair of Smith‘s work communicates volumes about the heartbreak and alienation that is the bane of 20th-century boys with too much time on their hands.

On Either / Or, Smith observes a production ethic that retains a lo-fi looseness without sacrificing any sonic clarity. His songs of loss and loneliness have the broken-poet aura of Smog or Mark Eitzel, but he offsets the gloom with a hatful of damnably catchy melodies and progressions, turning suffering into pop and making it signify

Tracklist:

A1 Speed Trials
A2 Alameda
A3 Ballad Of Big Nothing
A4 Between The Bars
A5 Pictures Of Me
A6 No Name No. 5
B1 Rose Parade
B2 Punch And Judy
B3 Angeles
B4 Cupid’s Trick
B5 2:45 AM
B6 Say Yes