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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