Album Review: Cutouts by The Smile

Third album from Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner is a stranger beast than its predecessors, finding them in playful and risky mood The Smile – Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner – have only been a thing for the past four years. In that time, they’ve managed to break free of the stigma of being labelled a side-project for the two most prominent members of a band that many would consider to be the very finest band of all time, and have become one of the most consistent, and consistently exciting hands on the planet. With a sound that’s best described as a hybrid of German progressive, electronic, alternative and art rock styles, The Smile have returned with their second album in a calendar year – Cutouts – which follows January’s Wall Of Eyes.

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The two have both been on a film score kick for a decade -- Yorke with the Suspiria remake and Confidenza, while Greenwood has worked on basically everything Paul Thomas Anderson touches -- so it makes sense that Cutouts, in all its orchestral glory, feels like a bunch of random OST pieces. Because of this orchestral focus, we don't hear much from Tom Skinner until the third track "Zero Sum," which sounds like the ugly aunt of "Thin Thing. " This under-utilization of Skinner feels like a misstep -- an absolute genius on the kit, he historically holds down the madness both Yorke and Greenwood produce.

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You know what, Thom Yorke has cheered up lately, hasn't he? Back in the day, in Radiohead, he was such a grouchy sod . Now he's making genuinely ecstatic music. In a band whose name is synonymous with joy. Good for him. ‘Cutouts’ - the third LP from Yorke, Radiohead alum Jonny ….

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For anyone invested in Radiohead and their side-projects, it's gratifying to discover that The Smile's third album, Cutouts, is superior to January's Wall of Eyes. Is it better than their debut, A Light For Attracting Attention, my favorite album of 2022? I don't know yet, but I do know that there's a lot to love about Cutouts, and it's certainly a more substantive release than its title might suggest -- that these are the cutting room-floor tracks from the Wall of Eyes sessions. Far from it: overall, this is a more colorful and dynamic record.

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Thirty seconds into Foreign Spies, the opening track of The Smile's second album of 2024, you'd be forgiven for thinking that they are a band transformed. We're gently ushered into a radiant sonic landscape - all warm, analogue synths, as if Vangelis had joined Cluster. Thom Yorke emerges, sounding awestruck at the heavenly sounds that surround him as he sings, "In a beautiful world".

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Having been recorded alongside January's 'Wall of Eyes', there's every reason to presume a record titled 'Cutouts' consists of tracks The Smile opted not to include on that second full-length. With that in mind, it doesn't surprise that the record is similarly atmospheric in nature - from the noodly 'Eyes & Mouth' to the swooping 'Tiptoe' via 'Don't Get Me Started' which ebbs and flows itself into a dubby breakdown towards the end of its runtime. Equally, it's only really the record's closing tracks that offer something of a hook, 'No Words' going from a church bell-like loop to propulsive drums and a tempered motorik style, and closer 'Bodies Laughing' making use of acoustic guitar and an almost float-along vocal turn from Thom Yorke.

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The third album in as many years from the Smile, the side project of Radiohead bandmates Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, Cutouts was born out of the same sessions that yielded last January's Wall of Eyes. The strategy isn't unlike that of Radiohead's Kid A and Amnesiac, companion albums released less than a year apart. Yorke and Greenwood are restlessly prolific artists, so attempts to understand their contemporary output by comparing it to what they did a quarter of a century ago might seem like a fool's errand.

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