Album Review: Heaven Adores You soundtrack
Part of the fun, or at least the thrill, maybe, is the right
word, in the otherwise very somber affair that was the Elliott Smith
documentary, Heaven Adores You, was
the fact that the filmmakers had gained access to previously unheard as well as
ultra rare and often bootlegged material to use as the film’s soundtrack.
My thoughts on the film itself were mixed, and in the end,
for me, it left a lot to be desired, but the entire time I was watching it, I
thought, “I hope that they release a soundtrack for this.”
That time has come, but however, the result, much like the
documentary it came from, leaves the listener with a feeling of something to be
desired due to the sheer mixed bag structure that it takes.
The collection cobbles together a number of very specific
things into one place—three songs pulled from Figure 8, a handful of incidental instrumentals, a song called “I
Love My Room,” recorded by a very young Smith, two live versions of popular
songs, and then the real reason one would even seek this soundtrack out:
alternate and early versions of songs you have come to know and love, as well
as one newly unearthed recording called “True Love.”
The instrumentals, while impressively showing off Smith’s
musical chops as a guitarist, as well as his ability to still structure a song
without lyrics, are all unfortunately throwaways—the same goes for “I Love My
Room,” and to an extent, the live version of “Miss Misery”—the audio ripped
from his performance of the song on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”
But it’s these alternative and early versions of songs that
are the real gems of the collection—specifically the double shot of a Heatmiser
recording of “Christian Brothers,” juxtaposed with a Smith solo rendition of
“Plain Clothes Man.”
The version of “Christian Brothers” recorded with his old
band started making the rounds online at the same time as the tenth anniversary
of his passing, but it is nice to finally have it in a tangible format, not
just a Souncloud stream shared by one of his old band mates. It’s like the
angrier, louder cousin to the whispery thin version that Smith recorded for his
self-titled album—when that guitar crunch hits during the song’s refrain, it really hits; and hard. It’s a
breathtaking slice of what never was.
The same can be said for the rollicking “Plain Clothes Man,”
a Heatmiser song recorded for their final album, Mic City Sons—the differences are mostly in production value and
instrumentation, because in the hands of just Smith, the feeling of the song
remains relatively intact.
However, not every alternate and early demo version of songs
can be as immediate as these two—some of them fall short, like the pisstake
early sketch of “Fear City,” and the warbled home recorded demo for the
heartbreaking “Waltz #1.”
Much like the documentary itself, the soundtrack to Heaven Adores You, is for a specific
kind of Elliott Smith fan. The completest probably already has a bulk of this
thanks to the Grand Mal bootleg
series that’s readily available online. So who is this soundtrack for, exactly?
As a fan, and I’d say a relatively hard core Elliott Smith
fan, I’d say I’m not even sure it’s for me, given my apathetic attitude towards
it—which is too bad, since I was actually looking forward to this release
following the announcement that a soundtrack to the documentary was even
happening.
The question of who the intended audience of this collection
is not ever really answered, unfortunately—like so many unanswered questions
with the life and death of Elliott Smith. For the fan, not the casual fan, Heaven Adores You is worth a listen, but
it’s “odds and ends” nature leaves it a little contextless and the sequencing
make it difficult to fully embrace as a piece of his canon.
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