Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention

by Nick Dent-Robinson

published: 21 / 6 / 2022

Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention

Label: XL Recordings
Format: CD

High quality debut album from The Smile, The new side-project for Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood

Review

The new side-project for Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood sees them team up with drummer Tom Skinner in a brand new trio, The Smile. 'A Light For Attracting Attention' is the first album from The Smile and it adds jazzy grooves to Yorke's ghostly falsetto and Greenwood's powerfully moody guitars and electronics. Echoes of Radiohead are never far away. The musicianship is superb throughout and the rhythms are sophisticated - though the lyrics can be impenetrable at times. 'You Will Never Work In Television Again' depicts a TV top executive as a "gangster troll'"and 'Free In The Knowledge' is a ballad that could have graced Radiohead's 1995 'The Bends' or 1997 'OK Computer” albums. But there is warmth, too, in The Smile's new album. There are cameos from some of the UK's best brass and woodwind players and some fine orchestrations by Hugh Brunt, a former chorister at St George's Chapel Windsor. The Smile is yet another interesting project by members of Oxfordshire's Radiohead – and high quality and craftsmanship is evident throughout every aspect of the trio's debut album.

Track Listing:-

1 The Same
2 The Opposite
3 You Will Never Work In Television Again
4 Pana-Vision
5 The Smoke
6 Speech Bubbles
7 Thin Thing
8 Open The Floodgates
9 Free In The Knowledge
10 A Hairdryer
11 Waving A White Flag
12 We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings
13 Skrting On The Surface