Wall Of Eyes
by The Smile
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This album has been added to 1 private list and 18 public lists:
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2024 Top 20
Adam WoodOn paper, I should love The Smile: 66.6% of the band are 40% of Radiohead, whom my Apple Music Replay inform me are my second-most-played artist of 2024 despite having not released an album since 2016. (FWIW, they were also third last year, and first the year before.) The remaining third is Tom Skinner, current drummer for Sons of Kemet. My favourite of that group’s work to date has been 2018’s Your Queen is a Reptile, and percussion on that (pre-Skinner) record is actually by Seb Rochford, who made this list last year for his collab with Kit Downes on A Short Diary. But, you get it: two tastes I enjoy should taste great together.
Excessive biographical context aside, for some reason The Smile’s debut, A Light for Attracting Attention (2022), didn’t land for me, and—grossly unfair as it is—I can find no more likely cause than an acute case of the not-Radioheads. In the time since, I can report that I’ve revisited it plenty, and it’s grown on my quite a bit. (Revisiting lists isn’t something we do, but I would estimate that if I was putting together the 2022 top 20 today, ALfAA would find a home in the lower half.) What has helped tremendously with that reappraisal, has been a pair of great follow-up LPs, released within nine months of one another this year. (I’ve spent far more time with Wall of Eyes, by virtue of its January arrival; Cutouts has also impressed in the few weeks since its arrival.) There are new flavours here (a little dark synth undertone on ‘Teleharmonic’, a glitchy cut-up technique on ‘I Quit’), but it’s difficult to read this as a departure from The Smile’s original template, so much as the sound of three hyper-talented musicians still feeling out where they can go together. Regardless, that weirdly hypnotic riff at the spine of ‘Read the Room’, and the Beatles-esque piano of ‘Friend of a Friend’ are among the most affecting sounds I encountered this year. The latter also has a superb, simple idea for a music video that speaks to the group’s lack of ego.
With three albums under their belt, and a consistent touring schedule, it looks like The Smile may have transcended the realm of ‘side project’. On the evidence thus far, if they’re in it for the long haul, count me in.
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New-to-me 2024 (Q1)
Mike ClaussVery happy to see that this lives up to the potential of a new Yorke/Greenwood thing. You can really feel it as an extension of Radiohead (but especially earlier Radiohead).
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New Music
AerynI think this is less accessible than their first album but it’s growing on me.
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z0z4
jzfski 💭🇬🇧
Art Rock, Post-Rock, Krautrock, Neo-Psychedelia, Math Rock, Ambient Pop
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🔮 2024: Most Anticipated
humdrumI’m not going to lie, I don’t know how I actually feel about The Smile, but for some reason I’m still excited for their second release.
23 January
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