The Smile: A Light for Attracting Attention

 

Thom Yorke and his band, Radiohead, have been making music since 1985. Thom was 16. Their first album came out in 1991. A career nearing 40 years. Let that sink in. Apart from Aerosmith and The Rolling Stones, it's difficult to find musicians that have been active for that long. Most that are still making music aren't really still making music. They stop for a decade before making a cash-in album. Those that are consistently active made their best albums decades ago, try as they might. Then there's Thom, Johnny, Colin, Ed, and Phillip, with no end to their "peak years" in sight.


After A Moon Shaped Pool, I felt the cold hand of time, as I'm sure many did. The quiet, content nature of the album signaled what could have been the end of Thom in the public eye. What else did he and his bandmates need to say when "I think it's time I allow myself some happiness" seemed to put such a neat little bow on the story of the quintet? For all of us listening, we could be happy to have been part of the journey to that release. I'm to understand that it's not the end (and I'm quite happy for that too), but until the group reunites, we have side projects to ingest. What better place to start than A Light for Attracting Attention, an album so steeped in Yorkeism, it really should have just been called a Radiohead album. I know I'll be acting like it is for the remainder of this review.


Here's the bottom line: The Smile is exactly what I want when I ask for more Radiohead. Yorke and company attack the same human condition issues they always have throughout their career. It's just that as you grow up, your reactions to those problems hopefully mature from that adolescent small-minded anger. I want all of that; I want the rage, the depression, the anxiety, the sleepiness, the acceptance, the stupidity, the shame, and the growth.

It's nice to see more difficult work come out of Yorke again, and not since In Rainbows has he wowed me with organized noise like this. These arrangements are the perfect time to say "No no no, but listen to it." The time signatures are just nnnnngh. Pana-vision isn't just dissonant, it sounds like the piano and the vocals are written for two different songs, but they still fit--it's impossible to sing along with. Thin Thing starts off with an almost random hammering of electric guitar, until you hear it loop over itself. Skrting on the Surface alludes to its own timing in the title, but in both cases you have to pay attention to notice the skip.


A lot of the more glacial moments see Yorke reflecting on trying to be better to those around himself. There's messages of working together, the need to focus on similarities, selflessness, and resilience. Free in the Knowledge is sneakily one of the best songs Yorke has ever written. We all felt what it evokes during the COVID years, so it shouldn't be surprising as a theme. When others were laughing, fighting, or freaking out, it's strange to hear The Smile be a beacon of hope. It's clever, then, that these are also the moments where the music most feels like it's trying to keep itself together-- after all, this isn't written as escapism.

Nonetheless, tracks like The Hairdryer suffer under the weight of meandering, loud, slow drives between keys. I want to be enthralled by these tracks, obviously, but sometimes I do find myself losing attention. "Don't bore us, get to the chorus" Thom wails in a very Thom way; I'm not sure if the joke is on us or on Thom, because Open the Floodgates never seems to get anywhere. Neither does Waving a White Flag....and that's most of the back half of the album eaten up by white noise. I want to like it, it's clearly competently arranged, produced, and performed. Ultimately they all just feel like an attempt at recapturing "I'm not here, this isn't happening", and it's the one weak spot I can confidently pin down.


There aren't a lot of upbeat numbers. When they come around, they're steeped in anger--nothing new for the members of the band. They're also weirdly the closest Thom Yorke will ever come to playing Post-Ramones music. It's not the most puzzling sound for the band to incorporate on a surface level, but generally that genre is full of cliche rockstar types. The Smile don't present much that can be argued to be made from a place of vanity. The ragged edges of these songs, specifically You Will Never Work in Televesion Again, Thin Thing, and We Don't Know What Tomorrow Brings ride that line of impeccable organization and timing against caveman aggression.

I find myself still admiring most everything offered here. Like a college lecture, you need to put the phone down, get your preferred note taking method out and pay attention. I don't imagine this will be revered as much as something like OK Computer, Kid A, or In Rainbows. It displays the collective haze we experienced when the world shut down, but it does it in a way that can't help but be compared to the past on a surface level. That shouldn't be held against the album, though. If ever there were a time for a hazy, grungy, anxious band, it was the early twenties. The Smile answered the call.


8/10, Vinylworthy