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- Summary: The third full-length release from rock trio The Smile features strings from the London Contemporary Orchestra and the flute by Pete Wareham.
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- Record Label: XL Recordings
- Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Experimental Rock
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 17
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Mixed: 1 out of 17
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Negative: 0 out of 17
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Oct 4, 2024By the time it finishes, it’s hard to avoid thinking that Cutouts is the best album by the best side project of the best band of all time. If you don’t get there, or if you read that and find that it doesn’t sell it to you, then you simply can’t be helped.
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Oct 3, 2024This band is having a ball, that much is plain. It’s a danceable album, upbeat in tone basically all the way through. On ‘Zero Sum’ especially, it all starts to pop off – savour the evergreen treat that is Thom Yorke being a snarky little so-and-so over a raging fucking bop. You love to see it. The slow number, ‘Tiptoe’, is absolutely gorgeous.
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Oct 3, 2024Cutouts feels a little like the cheeky younger sister of Wall of Eyes. The arrangements on that second album skewed traditional; more sombre and vulnerable in tone. Here, there’s a newfound vibrancy perhaps taking cues from Skinner’s jazz background.
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Oct 3, 2024Eschewing any grand, overarching statement, The Smile sound – whisper it – quite comfortable within what is now their established aesthetic.
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Oct 4, 2024The punchy The Slip aside, none of these intricately crafted songs is particularly immediate, but repeated listening allows each to reveal its charms.
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Nov 5, 2024Cutouts is an exciting milestone for The Smile, showcasing a new ability to create a unified and emotionally rich album, while still drawing on the creative fertility and spontaneity fans have come to expect from this most productive of Yorke’s projects.
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Oct 3, 2024The songs on Cutouts feel jammy and jazzy, and while the trio are of course experts at their craft, the instrumentation tends to meander.