SMILE
“Best debut album I’ve heard in a long time. The album is very coherent, has a couple of real bangers on it, and ranges from wild, dark post-punk anthems to clever Falco allusions (IMO, see ‘Stalemate’).”
@Dmitrij (amnesiacphlgm), Bandcamp
SMILE is a post-punk band with a frontwoman who prefers not to sing. She instead intones her poetic stories spiked with personal reflections. Taking notes from a UK-indebted post-punk sound, the band bet their cards on homogeneous straightforwardness, adhering to gloomy seriousness while making space for coolness. These ingredients are mixed with a sincere drive for experimentation, humor, dreamy buoyancy and a genre-blasting affinity for pop. Their stylistically confident debut Price of Progress from October 2023 showcases a level of versatility rarely found in today’s music, sounding as if it were cast from a single mold.