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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Smith’s ‘Basement’ reveals trace of pain

From wire reports

Elliott Smith

“From a Basement on the Hill” (Anti-) ••••

This posthumous album, which the venerated singer-songwriter had finished recording but hadn’t mixed or sequenced, came out Tuesday – almost a year to the day he was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment in an apparent suicide.

For someone who enjoyed an unusually intense bond with his audience, that’s not nearly long enough for his presence to fade, and Smith’s lingering memory will probably color the way many listeners hear some of the album’s especially revealing lines.

But in its ramshackle glory and musical wanderlust, “Basement” reaches far beyond the cult that coalesced around Smith during his decade-long evolution from isolated confessional auteur to one of the most widely admired troubadours of his generation.

Time after time, Smith drops his poignant, enticing melodies into musical maelstroms fashioned from fuzzed and distorted guitars, clattering rhythms and layers of sounds ranging from keyboards and string arrangements to chattering voices to the chirps of birds and crickets.

Even though his singing is freer and more forward than ever, its plangent timbre always carries at least a trace of pain. By the end, you know what it’s like to feel everything so intensely that it just hurts too much.

– Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times

William Shatner

“Has Been” (Shout! Factory) ••

William Shatner may be an overstuffed egotist given to the hammiest acting this side of Miss Piggy, but he’s not what his CD title suggests. The former Capt. James T. Kirk of “Star Trek” fame just won an Emmy for a guest appearance on ABC’s “The Practice,” and he’s starring in its new spinoff “Boston Legal.” He’s no has-been.

He’s no singer, either. But don’t worry. On “Has Been,” his follow-up to his infamous 1968 spoken-word LP – the one in which he campily covered the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” – he’s speaking rather than singing.

Some of this stuff is oddly affecting, thanks to Shatner’s expressive delivery – especially when he talks about finding his wife’s body at the bottom of their swimming pool or trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter after 20 years.

Helping goose a few cuts to Warp One speed, if not Warp Two or Three, is an eye-opening and diverse crew of musical collaborators including arranger and pianist Ben Folds, Brad Paisley, Joe Jackson, Aimee Mann, Adrian Belew, “High Fidelity” author Nick Hornby and punk poet Henry Rollins.

– Howard Cohen, Miami Herald

Nancy Sinatra

“Nancy Sinatra” (Attack/Sanctuary) •••

Like peanut butter and chocolate, the unlikely teaming of young modern rock hipsters and ‘60s pop icons pays off once again.

Earlier this year, country legend Loretta Lynn paired with White Stripes guitarist Jack White for “Van Lear Rose,” one of the year’s best albums.

Now, by enlisting a roster of hipster musicians and admirers like Morrissey, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, U2, Steven Van Zandt, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Pete Yorn, Nancy Sinatra, at age 64, has managed to unleash a cool pop/rock disc that, like Lynn’s, never feels like a phony attempt at modernism.

The opening, Southwestern-flavored “Burnin’ Down the Spark,” a retro blast mixing mariachi horns, strings, and pedal steel, takes its hallowed place on a shelf alongside her iconic 1966 hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

Nothing else here comes close and the Morrissey meeting (“Let Me Kiss You”) is a fizzle, but even initially off-putting tracks like Moore’s creepy and dissonant “Momma’s Boy,” which Sinatra sings in a monotone – she often sounds remarkably like Blondie’s Deborah Harry – reward repeat listens.

– Howard Cohen, Miami Herald

Guerilla Black

“Guerilla City” (Virgin) •••

Compton, Calif., is the home of some of the West Coast’s most significant hip-hop artists, including King Tee, Eazy-E, Dr. Dre and MC Eiht. With this strong debut album, Guerilla Black makes a compelling case that he could eventually be added to that prestigious list.

As Black raps on the eerie “Hearts of Fire,” “He look like Big. He sound like Big” – a reference to the uncanny similarity between him and Brooklyn’s Notorious B.I.G..

Like the late B.I.G., Black includes a deft mix of hard-core, narrative-driven pieces that showcase his imaginative, detailed storytelling (“Hearts of Fire” and the title track), as well as songs that cater to radio but are still edgy (“You’re the One,” “Guerilla Nasty”).

B.I.G. collaborators Carlos Broady and Mario Winans are among those who produced tracks on the album, giving a nod to Black’s skill and his B.I.G. potential.

– Soren Baker, Los Angeles Times