The Smile’s third album Cutouts would be much more striking if Wall of Eyes hadn’t stolen its thunder.
When the National released The First Two Pages of Frankenstein and Laugh Track only five months apart last year, I thought it somewhat odd that there was no real thematic difference between the two albums. Now, the Smile have done the same, releasing their third album Cutouts only eight months after their second, Wall of Eyes. Both albums were recorded at the same time (just like Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesiac), and there’s no obvious stylistic shifts between them. Once you see the album title Cutouts, you may wonder “is this just the leftovers that didn’t make it to Wall of Eyes?”
Well, yes and no. Cutouts reveals some new sounds and directions for the Smile while also refining many previously-tried techniques. It’s an album that would be much more striking if Wall of Eyes hadn’t stolen its thunder.
The first thing you’ll notice about Cutouts is that it starts slow, albeit in a good way. “Foreign Spies” uses layers of synthesizers to create what sounds like an orchestra, with haunting effect. It’s the most electronic-sounding track the Smile have done since “The Same” from their debut A Light Attracting Attention, and honestly sounds most like frontman Thom Yorke’s solo work. However, the second track, “Instant Psalm,” ditches the electronics entirely and goes all-in on having an actual orchestra back up its acoustic guitar strumming. The strings on this track are particularly pleasant— it’s like a more lullaby-ish version of “I Quit” from Wall of Eyes. While neither of these tracks introduce anything completely new, they both bring previously underutilized styles to the fore, and start the album on a high note.
If you think of the Smile more as a rock band, you’ll be pleased to know that the third track, “Zero Sum,” is what really kicks the album into gear. Drummer Tom Skinner lays down a quick tempo beat that rivals Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” while the rapidly rising and falling tones of Jonny Greenwood’s guitar are resemble a hellish version of “Flight of the Bumblebee.” If this didn’t make it gripping enough, Yorke’s pre-chorus has the lyric “thinking all the ways, the system will provide, Windows 95.”
While the first two tracks on Cutouts handle a slower pace well, the album does sag a bit when it returns to this tempo during the album’s second half. “Don’t Get Me Started” is as good and frustrated a song title as “Read the Room,” but its menacing electronic groans give way to much lighter keystrokes by its end. As the album’s longest track, you would expect it to build into something more. Similarly, “Tiptoe” has the delicate piano and strings that should give it a heavenly sound, but the strings are laid on a little too thick. Yorke’s voice sounds particularly incomprehensible here (confession: I have no idea what he’s singing 90% of the time), and the strings really swallow him up.
These are fairly minor criticisms in the context of the album, which is full of high quality tracks and continues to prove that the Smile are not just a Radiohead side project. The main issue with Cutouts instead comes when it’s compared to Wall of Eyes. The songs on Cutouts are overall more straightforward than those on its predecessor, which relished in multifaceted songs that took unexpected turns. There’s nothing quite comparable to Wall of Eyes’ climactic “Bending Hectic” on Cutouts, and it was always going to be a tall order to surpass that album. In the end, the result is quite similar to the difference between Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesiac – both are great albums in their own right, but the former managed to capture an excitement that the latter could not, and remains the more memorable of the two.
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