Ear Candy

Artist - Elliott Smith

Title - Figure 8

Label - Dreamworks Records/2000

This is a poppy, Beatle-fest nod to the 60's. This album wants to be your friend, but only on its own terms. Call it a thinking-man's pop album. Figure 8 is a "grower." However weird it may initially sound, it merits repeated listenings.

There's something bittersweet and melancholy about Smith's ruminations on lost love. Some are fraught with the temper of one done wrong "Somebody That I Used to Know", others filled with a baleful yearning "Everything Reminds Me of Her," with its briskly strummed guitar and closely miked vocal darting through fetching musical changes. These songs sound as if an unearthed time capsule has showered the listener with the long lost out-takes from a Rubber Soul, needless to say...Beatle fans welcome to nirvana.

Quiet, acoustic guitar- and solo piano-based tunes and expertly crafted rock songs slide along the lavish pop tracks...a diary of biting personal reflection. Figure 8 is a loaded Revolver...go figure...8.

Rating - 4 out of 5