Labels: self released
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Last.fm tells me that Smile was the name of a band that existed featuring Brian May and Roger Taylor. I am on fairly safe ground in saying that this is not the same band. In fact, Last.fm tells me that no other fucker has ever listened to these songs in the history of the world. So I feel pretty cool right now. Only 29 people on Facebook ‘like’ them. This might be the least popular band to ever pick up a guitar? However, as someone prone to swimming against the tide, to flying in the face of facts, I have to say that I like it. Smile have banged out a 4 song EP here of indie rock that fucking loves the 1990s. That’s cool, because so do I, other than the song “Swim” which is a bit naff. This sounds like they enjoy listening to Dinosaur Jr, Slowdive, Ride, Superchunk, and Built to Spill, without necessarily sounding particularly like any one of them in totality. Plus they probably like some other stuff. Anyway. They are not going to win any awards for originality, shoegazing, grungey indie rock has been done, and there’s nothing to stop you throwing on some other record crammed to the gills with jagged pop songs that feature squally guitars, but sometimes it just feels like you need to hear a new band fiddling with that template, turning it into a paper aeroplane, chucking it out of the window and seeing where it lands. This is perfectly acceptable. Smile have not rewritten the book on how to play indie rock, they aren’t ever going to get 10.0 on Pitchfork and the vast majority of people into independent rock music are either sooooo over bands that sounds like this or never going to be bloody interested in the first place. Well screw those people. I like it. I, like it. And that’s all I have to say on the matter.