Album Review: The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention

“While these are heavy topics, they are lightened by the chemistry on display in the instrumentation. There’s nothing that’s particularly far outside the Radiohead and Nigel Godrich playbook, but there is a levity and different dynamic that comes through; it’s audible that these are songs that have been hashed out by three people in a room together. Radiohead songs, by the time we hear them, are often quite dense, and with so many minds at work it’s a bit of a black box as to who contributed what. Here, pull away the bells and whistles, and you can hear Yorke chopping it up on the bass or bobbing away on the piano, bouncing ideas off his lifetime collaborator – who’s having fun focusing on the guitar again – while Skinner slides in with intelligent, understated drums.”

Radiohead were the formative band of my music listening career, so I had to write about the new offshoot The Smile. Take a look at the review in full over on BPM.