A Light for Attracting Attention
If The Smile ever seemed like a surprisingly upbeat name for a band containing two members of Radiohead (Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, joined by Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner), the trio used their debut gig to offer some clarification. Performing as part of Glastonbury Festival’s Live at Worthy Farm livestream in May 2021, Yorke announced, “We are called The Smile: not The Smile as in ‘Aaah!’—more the smile of the guy who lies to you every day.” To grasp the mood of their debut album, it’s instructive to go even deeper into a name that borrows the title of a 1970 Ted Hughes poem. In Hughes’ impressionist verse, some elemental force—compassion, humanity, love maybe—rises up to resist the deception and chicanery behind such disarming grins. And as much as the 13 songs on *A Light for Attracting Attention* sense crisis and dystopia looming, they also crackle with hope and insurrection. The pulsing electronics of opener “The Same” suggest the racing hearts and throbbing temples of our age of acute anxiety, and Yorke’s words feel like a call for unity and mobilization: “We don’t need to fight/Look towards the light/Grab it in with both hands/What you know is right.” Perennially contemplating the dynamics of power and thought, he surveys a world where “devastation has come” (“Speech Bubbles”) under the rule of “elected billionaires” (“The Opposite”), but it’s one where protest, however extreme, can still birth change (“The Smoke”). Amid scathing guitars and outbursts of free jazz, his invective zooms in on abuses of power (“You Will Never Work in Television Again”) before shaming inertia and blame-shifters on the scurrying beats and descending melodies of “A Hairdryer.” These aren’t exactly new themes for Yorke and it’s not a record that sits at an extreme outpost of Radiohead’s extended universe. Emboldened by Skinner’s fluid, intrepid rhythms, *A Light for Attracting Attention* draws frequently on various periods of Yorke and Greenwood’s past work. The emotional eloquence of Greenwood’s soundtrack projects resurfaces on “Speech Bubbles” and “Pana-Vision,” while Yorke’s fascination with digital reveries continues to be explored on “Open the Floodgates” and “The Same.” Elegantly cloaked in strings, “Free in the Knowledge” is a beautiful acoustic-guitar ballad in the lineage of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” and the original live version of “True Love Waits.” Of course, lesser-trodden ground is visited, too: most intriguingly, math-rock (“Thin Thing”) and folk songs fit for a ’70s sci-fi drama (“Waving a White Flag”). The album closes with “Skrting on the Surface,” a song first aired at a 2009 show Yorke played with Atoms for Peace. With Greenwood’s guitar arpeggios and Yorke’s aching falsetto, it calls back even further to *The Bends*’ finale, “Street Spirit (Fade Out).” However, its message about the fragility of existence—“When we realize we have only to die, then we’re out of here/We’re just skirting on the surface”—remains sharply resonant.
The Smile will release their highly anticipated debut album A Light For Attracting Attention on 13 May, 2022 on XL Recordings. The 13- track album was produced and mixed by Nigel Godrich and mastered by Bob Ludwig. Tracks feature strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra and a full brass section of contempoarary UK jazz players including Byron Wallen, Theon and Nathaniel Cross, Chelsea Carmichael, Robert Stillman and Jason Yarde. The band, comprising Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner, have previously released the singles You Will Never Work in Television Again, The Smoke, and Skrting On The Surface to critical acclaim.
The debut album from Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and drummer Tom Skinner’s new group is instantly, unmistakably the best album yet by a Radiohead side project.
The Smile retains the Radiohead sound and quality with A Light for Attracting Attention
Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Sons Of Kemet’s Tom Skinner cut loose on this curious and energetic supergroup romp
The Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner (Sons of Kemet) project's debut proves that a Radiohead by any other name…
The Smile's 'A Light for Attracting Attention,' a new album featuring Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, reviewed by Rolling Stone.
Upon first listen, one might mistake the Smile's debut, A Light for Attracting Attention, for a Radiohead album.
The Smile's 'A Light for Attracting Attention' Could Easily Pass for Radiohead By
In the music world, a new Radiohead project feels like a seismic event, commanding the kind of attention that few other bands can. As one of the most universally beloved and remarkably consistent elder statesmen in what can loosely be defined as rock music, Radiohead albums each seem weighty and purposeful, the product of years of careful craftsmanship. At this point, the world hasn’t seen one of these events in six years, not since the band’s 2016 record, A Moon Shaped Pool.
The debut album from Thom Yorke’s latest side project finds him in excellent voice, on tracks that veer from spiky post-punk to teasingly romantic
Look past all the Radiohead-related hype, and you're just left with a really great rock record from Yorke, Greenwood and Skinner as The Smile
The Smile aren't a full-on syncretism of Radiohead and Sons of Kemet, but 'A Light for Attracting Attention' proves that it needn't be.
'A Light for Attracting Attention' by The Smile Album Review by Adam Williams. The full-length drops on May 13, 2022 via XL Recordings
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood team with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner for a debut that may not be head-spinningly different, but is still exceptional
Ever since OK Computer, Thom Yorke has professed fear and distrust through his words – but he and Radiohead have always balanced it with sheer beauty. With The Smile, his new band with old ally Jonny Greenwood and new one Tom Skinner, he’s arguably more agitated and hopeless than ever, and this time around beauty
The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention review: Turn that frown upside down
While Miss Welch and her Machine produce a tour de force, Kendrick Lamar takes a look at himself and The Smile release their debut
Radiohead duo re-emerge refreshed as avant-jazz trio The Smile, alongside Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner.