As always, Tom Skinner’s contribution behind the kit adds new flavors the mix and lifts the compositions. He puts a bit of jazz in some otherwise straight-edged grooves.

When “Don’t Get Me Started” came out, I assumed it would just be a single for Record Store Day, but the song has such a massive gravity to it that I suspected it couldn’t be a standalone track. The space surrounding the hard-panned synthesizers, echoed vocals, and muted drums build in such a suspenseful way. It’s the same kind of anxiety I felt watching the 1979 film “Alien” for the first time (which I also did this month). Both gave me goosebumps.

Leading up to the release of the record, regardless of what genre I listened to, “Zero Sum” played after every other album I listened to on Spotify, and I couldn’t figure out why. It’s a great song, but it was starting to drive me nuts. Ultimately, I concluded that the algorithm has no idea what to do with it. It’s trippy, uptempo, a bit dark, a bit abstract. It’s popular, yet I can’t think of any way to categorize it. The guitar riff that plays throughout left me a bit excited to wonder, “How’s he doing that?” Centered around a glitchy, unusual melody that, if I didn’t know was being played by Johnny Greenwood, I might not assume is a guitar at all.

“Eyes and Mouth” employs similar tricks but with a much more immense groove. It feels like a song you’d hear in a high-end fashion store in the best way possible. Marching drums and suspended piano chords morph the arrangement to feel a bit larger than life. Whether the song started with the piano and melody or they were superimposed over a guitar riff demo, I can’t tell. Either way, it feels like there had to be a magic moment of inception that blossomed when they brought it all together. Moments like this show just fresh and outstanding of an entry that Cutouts is.

The question could arise: If The Smile keeps releasing albums twice a year, do they still deserve such continued attention? If they continue to make albums that push themselves into new and exciting territories like they’ve been doing, then yes, they absolutely do. 

Releasing two albums in one year is insane, regardless of quality, but to release two albums in a year and have both be equally brilliant and expansive on their legacy? Unheard of. The only other groups I can think  of doing that were The Beatles from 1965-66 and Radiohead in 2000-01. I’m sure there’s a few others too, but it’s exciting to see widely loved artists not resting on their laurels.

This is the rare type of contagious dedication that has me eagerly looking forward to what’s next for the group rather than sinking back to their back catalog.