The Smile | |
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![]() The Smile in January 2022 | |
Background information | |
Genres | |
Years active | 2020–present |
Labels |
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Spinoff of | Radiohead |
Members | |
Website | thesmiletheband |
The Smile are an English rock band comprising the Radiohead members Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, bass, keys) and Jonny Greenwood (guitar, bass, keys) with Tom Skinner (drums). They incorporate elements of post-punk, progressive rock, Afrobeat and electronic music.
The Smile worked during the COVID-19 lockdowns and made their surprise debut in a performance streamed by Glastonbury Festival in May 2021. In early 2022, they released six singles and performed to an audience for the first time at three shows in London, which were livestreamed. In May, the Smile released their debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention, to acclaim. It was produced by Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's longtime producer.
The Smile toured Europe and North America in 2022 and 2023. They have released two live EPs: The Smile (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival, July 2022) and Europe: Live Recordings 2022. Their second album, Wall of Eyes, was released in January 2024.
The Smile are composed of the Radiohead members Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke with the drummer Tom Skinner.[2] Skinner, who had played with acts including the jazz band Sons of Kemet,[2] first worked with Greenwood when he played on his soundtrack to the 2012 film The Master.[3] The Smile members agreed not to give interviews about the project.[3] They take their name from the title of a poem by Ted Hughes.[4] Yorke said it was "not the smile as in 'ahh', more the smile as in the guy who lies to you every day".[5]
The Smile's first record was produced by Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's longtime producer.[6] Godrich said the project emerged from Greenwood "writing all these riffs, waiting for something to happen" during the COVID-19 lockdown. He cited the pandemic and the unavailability of the Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien, who was busy with his debut solo album, Earth (2020), as motivating factors.[7] Greenwood said: "We didn't have much time, but we just wanted to finish some songs together. It's been very stop-start, but it's felt a happy way to make music."[8] Radiohead's drummer, Philip Selway, said it was healthy for the members to explore different projects and "see what these other musical voices can do with your ideas".[9]
The Smile made their debut in a surprise performance for the concert video Live at Worthy Farm, produced by Glastonbury Festival and streamed on May 22, 2021. The performance was recorded in secret earlier that week and announced on the day of the stream.[4] The band performed eight songs, with Yorke and Greenwood on guitar, bass, Moog synthesiser and Rhodes piano.[10] That October, Yorke performed a Smile song, "Free in the Knowledge", at the Letters Live event at the Royal Albert Hall, London.[11]
In January 2022, the Smile performed to an audience for the first time at three shows at Magazine, London, which were livestreamed.[12] They played in the round, and debuted several tracks, including "Speech Bubbles", "A Hairdryer", "Waving a White Flag" and "The Same".[13] The shows also included performances of "Open the Floodgates",[12] which Yorke first performed in 2010,[14] and a cover of the 1979 Joe Jackson single "It's Different for Girls".[13]
In NME, James Balmont gave the London show four out of five, describing it as "meticulous, captivating stuff".[15] In the Guardian, Kitty Empire gave it four out of five, writing that "the Smile are most musically convincing when they stretch farther away from Radiohead",[16] while Alexis Petridis gave it three, saying it was "intriguing rather than dazzling, intermittently spellbinding, filled with fascinating ideas that don't always coalesce".[17]
Main article: A Light for Attracting Attention |
On 20 April 2022, the Smile announced their debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention. It was released digitally through XL Recordings on 13 May, followed by a retail release on 17 June,[18] and reached number five on the UK Albums Chart.[19] It received acclaim.[20] The Pitchfork critic Ryan Dombal wrote that it was "instantly, unmistakably the best album yet by a Radiohead side project".[21] The first single, "You Will Never Work in Television Again", was released on streaming platforms on 5 January 2022.[22] It was followed by "The Smoke",[23] "Skrting on the Surface",[24] "Pana-vision",[25] "Free in the Knowledge",[26] and "Thin Thing".[27]
On 16 May, the Smile began a tour of Europe and North America.[28][29] The tour included performances of the unreleased song "Just Eyes and Mouth", Yorke's 2009 single "FeelingPulledApartByHorses" and new material.[30][31] The band were joined for some songs by the saxophonist Robert Stillman.[32] A second North American tour began in mid-2023, including the Smile's first show in Mexico City[33] and a headlining slot at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.[34]
On 14 December, the Smile released a digital EP, The Smile (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival, July 2022), with songs from their performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland.[35] On 10 March 2023, they released a limited-edition vinyl EP, Europe: Live Recordings 2022, which includes a performance of "FeelingPulledApartByHorses".[33]
Main article: Wall of Eyes |
In March 2023, the Smile confirmed that they were seven weeks into recording a second album.[36] On 20 June, they released the first single from their second album, "Bending Hectic".[37] Stereogum described it as an "epic that starts out soft and quiet and builds into a splendorous stomping beast".[38] In September, Yorke and Donwood exhibited a selection of artwork created for the Smile, The Crow Flies, in London.[39]
The Smile announced their second album, Wall of Eyes, on 13 November, alongside another single, "Wall of Eyes", with a music video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.[40] The album was produced by Sam Petts-Davies and released on 26 January 2024.[40] Another single, "Friend of a Friend", was released on 9 January.[41]
On 19 January 2024, the Smile held a series of screenings at independent cinemas. The events included listening parties for the album and a selection of Yorke and Greenwood's videos with Paul Thomas Anderson.[42][43] The band members made a surprise appearance at the Prince Charles Cinema in London and answered questions from the audience.[43] The Smile are due to begin a European tour in March, including a performance at the BBC 6 Music Festival with the London Contemporary Orchestra.[44][45]
Consequence wrote that the Smile incorporate elements of post-punk, proto-punk and math rock.[46] Several critics likened them to Yorke and Greenwood's band Radiohead; both acts use "warped" melodies, unusual time signatures and "vintage rock" sensibilities.[47][48] The Guardian critic Alexis Petridis said the Smile "sound like a simultaneously more skeletal and knottier version of Radiohead", incorporating progressive rock influences, complex riffs and "hard-driving" motorik psychedelia.[48] The Uncut critic Wyndham Wallace described the Smile as "less a spinoff than regeneration, like a new Doctor Who, emerging from the same gene pool with equal gravitas".[47]
Pitchfork identified a "slight bounce" in Skinner's drumming and "unfamiliar aggression" in Greenwood's basslines.[10] On several Smile songs, Greenwood uses a delay effect to create "angular" synchronised repeats.[49] The critic Kitty Empire noted Afrobeat elements in "Just Eyes and Mouth" and influence from 1960s electronic music and systems music in "Open the Floodgates" and "The Same".[16] Reviewing Wall of Eyes, Pitchfork said the Smile was "stranger and wilder" than Radiohead, with more emphasis on jazz, progressive rock and krautrock, and allowed Yorke and Greenwood to "loosen up" after "decades refining, refusing, and reformulating the Radiohead sound".[50]
Touring members
Title | Details | Peak chart positions | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UK [51] |
UK Indie [52] |
AUS [53] |
BEL (FL) [54] |
IRE [55] |
NLD [56] |
NZ [57] |
US [58] |
US Indie [59] |
US Rock [60] | ||
A Light for Attracting Attention | 5 | 1 | 15 | 5 | 11 | 3 | 32 | 19 | 2 | 2 | |
Wall of Eyes |
|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Title | Details | Peak chart positions | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
UK Sales [61] |
UK Indie [62] |
SCO [63] |
US Sales [64] | ||
The Smile (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival, July 2022) | — | — | — | — | |
Europe: Live Recordings 2022 |
|
9 | 5 | 9 | 57 |
Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album |
---|---|---|---|
UK DL [65] | |||
"You Will Never Work in Television Again" | 2022 | — | A Light for Attracting Attention |
"The Smoke" | — | ||
"Skrting on the Surface" | — | ||
"Pana-vision" | — | ||
"Free in the Knowledge" | — | ||
"Thin Thing" | — | ||
"Open the Floodgates" / "A Hairdryer"[66] (Live from Magazine, London) |
— | Non-album single | |
"Bending Hectic" | 2023 | 31 | Wall of Eyes |
"Wall of Eyes" | — | ||
"Friend of a Friend" | 2024 | — |