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TopTenREVIEWS presents the reviews for From a Basement on the Hill

From a Basement on the Hill album image

From a Basement on the Hill

by Elliott Smith

ALBUM RANKINGS:

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  • of 455,611
    372
  • of 265,875
    18
  • of 38,943
    5
Ratings and rankings are based on all available critic reviews and awards.
Overall Rating: 3.5286 From a Basement on the Hill is ranked overall as 3.5286 out of 4 stars
Avg. Critic Score: 3.3044 From a Basement on the Hill has an avg. critic score of 3.3044 out of 4 stars

From a Basement on the Hill Rank 3 Reviews

Critic Review Summary
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Good
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Drowned In Sound
The most fitting of testaments -- a flawed, courageous, beautiful and intimately human portrait of the self. ...more
Launch.com
One of his best. ...more
The New York Times
The low-fi yet meticulous arrangements only add to the sense of isolation and the poignancy of the ...more
Dusted Magazine
On the whole Basement is noisy and rough, and often sounds more like the best record Heatmiser never made than the next Elliott Smith album. ...more
Billboard
Smith bundles subtlety and ferocity to create one of his heart-aching best. ...more

Critic Reviews continued...

PrefixMag
The most horrific circumstance surrounding Elliott Smith's (alleged) suicide, even more haunting than the songwriter's decision to plunge a steak knife through his heart, is how unsurprising that decision was. Few other artists, living or dead, ...more
PrefixMag
From the Basement is a painful reminder of a record that couldve been and a life that shouldnt have ended. ...more
ShakingThrough.net
Hill feels more like a retrospective than a steady gallop toward the next stage in Smith's artistic advancement. ...more
Austin Chronicle
More structured and electric than Either/Or, but without the overproduction of Figure 8, Basement is the next logical step. ...more
BBC Music
From A Basement On The Hill is possibly one of the saddest records ever made. ...more
Pitchfork
The most disheartening thing about From a Basement on the Hill is its plainness-- it's neither a perfect record (and not one of Smith's best) nor the kind of colossal disaster that could be angrily pinned on money-hungry handlers and desperate fans. ...more
Pitch Fork Media
Pontificating at length about the colossal sadness of Elliott Smith's discography might seem reductive or stupidly obvious, but "sad" still stands as the single most accurate label ever slapped onto any of the late singer/songwriter's records. ...more
Rolling Stone
This is an album about the seductions of oblivion, and a few of the more densely arranged songs mimic the characters in the lyrics, stumbling around without quite connecting. ...more
Paste Magazine
A fitting farewell to a distinctive voice silenced too early. ...more
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Slightly overlong and sometimes stitched-together, From A Basement On The Hill sags in spots.... Yet in the end, the album still earns its place--not at the top, and unfortunately as a bookend--in a jarringly important body of work. ...more
No Ripcord
The good news is that there is no real filler on the album, but this uniformity of quality equates to an album where every song is good, but where few are really great. ...more
Dot Music
A fine collection of songs from an immensely talented, tragically lost soul. ...more
Rolling Stone
For many fans, Elliott Smith's greatest gift to the world was his sadness. He was thirty-four when he died on October 21st, 2003, from two stab wounds to the chest. But the more we learned about his death, the less we knew. For a while, ...more
RollingStone
This is an album about the seductions of oblivion, and a few of the more densely arranged songs mimic the characters in the lyrics, stumbling around without quite connecting. ...more
Almost Cool
While it makes a lot of musical leaps (it's probably the most "experimental" work he's done), not all of them work, but there are still some great moments for fans of his work here. ...more
Neumu.net
This final record is neither focused nor infallible, instead a rarer glimpse at a man whose creative doorways, once the source of so much hope and inspiration, had become outnumbered by his demons. ...more

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