All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

The Onion (A.V. Club)

New Moon is thankfully, wonderfully full.

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100

Entertainment Weekly

Moon's two cohesive CDs prove as emotionally powerful as anything in his catalog. [1 Jun 2007, p.68]

100

Uncut

While what was lost with Smith is immeasurable, what he left was amazing, and New Moon is an appropriately spectacular monument. [Jun 2007, p.112]

Filter

New Moon is Smith at his musical best: quiet, humble, and most of all, honest. [#25, p.96]

Pitchfork

Phrases like "rare talent" are thrown around all the time these days, but this compilation makes painfully clear just how unique and valuable this music is.

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Prefix Magazine

What makes New Moon succeed is something similar to what Shakespeare gets at in many of his sonnets: the ability of art to beat death.

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cokemachineglow

The 24 songs... are characteristically and uniformly excellent.

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Stylus Magazine

You’d hardly expect songs as strong as these to be in anyone’s wastebasket, but with only a few exceptions the material assembled here is just as, if not more, intimate and honest as anything on those proper albums.

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Rolling Stone

As a whole, the collection is as indispensable as Either/Or. [31 May 2007, p.96]

All Music Guide

Though some of the songs here, especially the earlier ones, can be quite simple, even raw at times, there's a sad, clean sweetness that comes through despite the occasional bit of tape hiss, of tinny chords.

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Dot Music

That every track here reinforces that memory of him makes it an unexpectedly fitting tribute.

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The Guardian

The albums Smith released before his probable suicide in 2003 had a bruised, fragile quality, and these sparse songs... are no different.

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Spin

The strongest [tracks]... get to Smith's best impulse: a willingness to find the innocence in life. [May 2007, p.94]

Boston Globe

Far from a compilation of rough mixes and rejects, any of the songs on this disc -- as spare in sound as they are elegant in form -- would have fit beautifully on a mid-'90s Elliott Smith album.

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musicOMH.com

What we ultimately get with New Moon feels in part like a Best Of retrospective, but also in part a surreptitious and rather voyeuristic peek at Smith's innermost workings and thoughts.

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PopMatters

Now it is also clear that Smith joins rank amongst the likes of Pavement or the Clash with a perfectionist ability to craft delightful “throw-away” tracks.

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Under The Radar

As hope, there are revealing looks at Smith's developments as a writer. [#17, p.87]

Blender

New Moon sounds less like a pile of outtakes than an official album released in a parallel universe.

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Observer Music Monthly

Smith's trademark combination of breathy - almost whispered - vocals, deceptively resilient acoustic melodies, and sombrely introspective lyrics, is shown off to sufficiently good advantage here to make New Moon a worthy companion piece to 1995's Elliott Smith and 1997's Either/Or.

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New York Magazine

There is nothing tentative or unpolished about any of these songs.

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Drowned In Sound

As fan-boy pleasing as this is, and as great as some of the songs are, it still feels a little like sneaking a peek at a director’s first draft, or rummaging through a scribbly, discarded diary.

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Austin Chronicle

New Moon is a near yearbook, a simple reminder of the talent and fruition of Steven Paul Smith, friend, comedian, and one of the greatest songwriters of this generation.

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Hot Press

Despite their disparate origins this is no hotchpotch of leftovers and out-takes.

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Los Angeles Times

It does reveal how thoughtful and meticulously pretty his songwriting was, even on his most intimate recordings.

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Billboard

There are some real gems here. [12 May 2007]

Dusted Magazine

The results, though rarely the caliber of the albums that bookended this era, are a consistent delight.

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New Musical Express

What this collection of songs from his mid-'90s creative purple patch shows is that few people in recent times have done sadness so exquisitely.

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Paste Magazine

For diehard Elliott Smith fans, New Moon is an absolute must... For remaining listeners, it's merely instructive, sublime in parts but not solid enough or surprising enough or interesting enough, musically, to merit multiple listens. [May 2007, p.58]

NOW Magazine

Too few of the two dozen half-developed tracks here do justice to Smith's talent as a songwriter.

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Tiny Mix Tapes

You can hear him trying to figure things out, and that’s the most lasting and vital aspect of New Moon.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 40 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

James M. gave it an8:
Elliott Smith is my favorite artist ever. However, this is not a 10 effort as so many fans have mindlessly posted...the record is astounding considering that it consists mostly of b-sides, but on its own merits it's great rather than excellent.

Lindsay J. gave it a10:
I've been unable to take this album out of my CD player. Beautiful, amazing, rich, powerful...I could go on & on & on.

Raju K. gave it a2:
If he didn't sing, the CD would have been much better. He can play the guitar, and write some lyrics, but thats where his talent stops. I don't feel like listening to someone who cant sing in a genre of music where I think you need to showcase your vocals when it is almost acapella in nature. He is out of tune every other line. Sorry, not for me.

Eden L gave it a10:
everything of elliotts is amazing, and new moon is no exception. i prefer a lot of these songs to other ones on proper albums.

Matt A. gave it a6:
Honestly decent but you can't but feel like everyone is praising it because the guy is dead. XO and even Figure 8 were much better than From a Basement and this collection. I would say it is his album that I listen to least.

Fefifofum E. gave it a10:
The bottom line is that this album is more than any Elliott Smith fan could have hoped for, both in terms of quality and quantity

Sean D. gave it an8:
not as great as xo or figure 8 but in my opinion on par with either/or and the self titled

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