The Smile - Wall of Eyes (XL Recordings, 2024)
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
The eye is the entrance to the soul. Wall of Eyes is the second album by the band The Smile. I never heard their first album, and I only heard two albums by Radiohead. I liked them at the time, but it never stuck with me. It went through the ears, hung around the brain, and then exited through the ears and never thought about again. And as usual, as they got more popular, the less I paid attention to their world. This has to do more with me than them, and politically and aesthetically, I thought about Charlie Parker, my current obsession.
Wall of Eyes is an album I should love because I like this type of music, which reminds me of Harvest (EMI) Records circa 1971. It was an exciting year when music tried to find a ground to stand on, with experimentation and glam simultaneously happening. If this album was released that year, it would fit comfortably with Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom, early Post-Syd Pink Floyd, or the music by German artists like Neu!, Can, and so forth. But here we are in 2024, and although the sounds and aesthetics are coming from a soulful place, they are replicas of another era’s sound.
There is nothing terrible about all that, but although it sounds like it’s stretching out into the present/future, it isn’t. It reminds me a bit of when I listened to John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album for the first time. I thought, Oh my God, and then the other Lennon albums came out, and they were works where the artist is not pushing himself. The sounds and the songs have lovely melodies, but it wasn’t earthshakingly odd or thrilling like songs like Mother and so on. OK Computer by Radiohead was their moment when it sounded new and important for that era of the 90s. Still, everything afterward was made to ignore that masterpiece or, at its worst, not to challenge the status by making something essential. And what I ask for from an artist is a lot. It’s not fair, but is Wall of Eyes necessary at the same time? It’s nice. And people will like it, and I’m sure it will sell, but it remains empty. Why?
But to give credit to its due, I think this is the first time that I admire Thom Yorke’s vocals on an album. As a vocalist, he is pushing himself. He has a pretty voice, but I feel he often goes on remote control with aspects of the type of music he and the band make. here on Wall of Eyes, he is challenging himself a bit, and perhaps the whole band is as well. But there is no wow moment for me. It is like going to the market and getting your favorite brand of food, and you keep at it because there are no surprises, and you get comfort or a sense of security.
