The Smile - Cutouts (2024)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 240 MB | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 102 MB
43:54 | Alternative, Rock | Label: XL Recordings
Wasting no time, Cutouts arrives in the same year as The Smile's Wall of Eyes. And as we close in on a decade without new material from Radiohead, the third record from The Smile —Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, along with drummer Tom Skinner, otherwise known for his jazz work—is a strong fill-in. There's a familiarity here, and not just because some of the songs have already been performed on the road. But The Smile is clearly its own thing as well. Greenwood is flying wild, especially on songs like "Eyes & Mouth"—guitar getting into virtuosic territory against Skinner's racehorse jazz drums and somber piano—and "Zero Sum." The latter also features traffic-jam blares and Yorke posturing with punk meets funk swagger as he, familiarly, warns about some kind of charlatans: "They're so overconfident, confident, confident/ That's another red flag, red flag." Indeed, Yorke comes on like a strong societal critic, shaking his head over fakes and hucksters—and it could be about disinformation, or politics, or AI, or any other number of things.