Elliott Smith

★★★★ Elliott Smith: Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition KILL ROCK STARS/UMC. CD/DL/LP A quarter-century later, this second LP still articulates intense despair singularly. Years before Elliott Smith’s fragile missives from the edge of a depressive abyss became soundtrack fodder for Wes Anderson or Gus Van Sant, he was a proper rock band’s singer trying to stake out some quiet solo songs, too. His second such album, recorded just as said band Heatmiser began to combust, softly seethes at memories of an abusive stepfather, sweetly longs for heroin’s release, and warmly recounts nights spent amid a malt liquor fugue. Sharply remastered here, Smith’s muted but pointed woes crackle with renewed intensity, reinforced by a restoration of what may be his first solo live recording. “I was sticking up for my friend/When there’s nothing much to defend,” he half-gasps during the charged closer, captured in 1994 at a Portland café. “It’s a lost fight.” But his battles, well documented in the years that followed, remain powerful to witness. Grayson Haver Currin