The Smile have been keeping themselves busy. Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner last graced us with a full-length studio album as recently as January, in the form of Wall of Eyes. This remarkable productivity is reminiscent of when Radiohead recorded Kid A and Amnesiac simultaneously after the breakthrough, zeitgeist-grabbing success of OK Computer, in the late 1990s. Back then they chose not to release all those songs as a double album, plumping for separate release dates in 2000 and 2001.
Nearly a quarter of a century later, still nothing can stop Yorke and Greenwood’s relentless gallop to keep releasing material. Cutouts was recorded at the same Oxford and Abbey Road sessions as Wall of Eyes. Both records were produced by Sam Petts-Davies, whose association with Yorke and Greenwood began when he engineered the last Radiohead album, A Moon Shaped Pool, in 2016. Cutouts again features string arrangements by the London Contemporary Orchestra and artwork by Yorke and Stanley Donwood, his long-term visual collaborator, so they are clearly in their comfort zone.
The album begins with a previously released track, Foreign Spies. It’s okay but arguably one of the weakest opening tracks The Smile or Radiohead have recorded. It sorely lacks the gentle punch of the title track that opened Wall of Eyes earlier this year, or songs of the calibre of Airbag, Everything in its Right Place or Burn the Witch. This is basically another way of saying that they’ve set the bar very high for themselves.
Happily, Cutouts dramatically improves. Zero Sum, a song that received its live premiere at 3Arena in Dublin last March, might well be The Smile’s finest moment yet. And, while the opening track might underwhelm, the closing one, Bodies Laughing, is a bona-fide classic. Yorke’s voice has aged ever so elegantly, brimming with a rich and singular soulfulness. The musicianship from Greenwood and Skinner is as impeccable as ever.
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Impatient Radiohead fans will probably view this surprise release as a further indication that the Oxford behemoths are returning to the studio sooner rather than later. Colin Greenwood, the band’s bassist, raised this hope when he claimed that the quintet convened in London recently to rehearse, but it kind of misses the point. Radiohead are a fluid and flexible entity at this late stage of their game. Greenwood is even strapping on his bass to become a fully fledged Bad Seed on Nick Cave’s current European tour. Meanwhile, his musical polyglot of a little brother seemingly can’t stop making music with his old buddy. Music pours out of them. The pleasure is all ours.
