Elliott Smith - Either/Or

This singer/songwriter can say more with a whisper than most folks can with a scream. The gently insinuating despair of Smith's work communicates volumes about the heartbreak and alienation that is the bane of 20^th century boys with too much time on their hands. Smith's day job fronting the aggressive post-punk band Heatmiser provides him with the necessary yang to produce the quiet, evocative yin of his solo work. On Either/Or, Smith observes a production ethic that retains a lo-fi looseness without sacrificing any sonic clarity. His songs of loss and loneliness have the broken-poet aura of Smog or Mark Eitzel, but he offsets the gloom with a hatful of damnably catchy melodies and progressions, turning suffering into pop and making it signify.