The musicians troop onstage, Thom Yorke takes a seat behind the piano, and “Pana-vision” commences: my first live concert stream. I nearly watched it in the bath before realising it would make note taking difficult.
I should caveat this review with the confession: I am not a huge Thom Yorke fan, therefore my observations will be biased. I appreciate his mastery and his talent, band there are some songs of his I truly enjoy and have saved. I think I even have an OK Computer CD lurking somewhere in my childhood home. However, I treat his new creations with a critical, albeit slightly unassuming ear.
You have been warned – and anyway, you’ll find plenty of positive reviews elsewhere.
Some will say The Smile holds its own against Radiohead material. And perhaps to the trained connoisseur, it does. But if I’m completely honest, to me, The Smile sounds like Thom Yorke, playing Thom Yorke, for Thom Yorke fans. I’m not saying his instrumental mastery isn’t fantastic, nor that the music leaves me unmoved. Quite the opposite, The Smile weaves an atmosphere that is very specific – doom-laden at times, merging into the frenetic, but also languishing and beautiful.
The reworked ‘Skrting on the surface’ feels like a soft lament, whereas ‘You will never work in television again’ is energetic with that well-known undercurrent of angst, so familiar to Yorke fans. It pervades his music, and it is partly bound up in Yorke’s voice, melodious but grating. It goes through you.
And here is the thing: Yorke’s voice is so distinctive, you cannot help but recognise it in each of his new musical creations. And for me, that somewhat restricts his versatility. He is the centre point of each offshoot, and thus any “newness” has its limits. I guess this is more of a problem when you’re not won over in the first place. I feel the same way about Damon Albarn post-Blur, albeit slightly more favourably (but I still get annoyed).
The visuals are hypnotic, the spidery LED cage within which The Smile performs is truly an instance of a set complementing the content. The atmosphere is creepy and intense. Bars of light rise and fall, the camera switches between black and white and colour depending on the song, flitting between wide angle and close ups. It’s all very impressive; there is no doubt about that. At one point Jonny Greenwood plays keys with one hand and a lyre with the other, putting all instrumentally challenged individuals to shame – the skill is obvious.
The set-up is nearly impeccable.
Then the expected happens: the livestream fails me. I blame the chat, which I have opened to witness a separate performance in itself: “Talk about kicking butt” says one person, while another laments the live feed and platform. “Your internet sucks mate” comes the response – it’s like a drama unfolding in the comments (when is it not).
“Just Eyes and Mouth”, the encore, starts off groovier, but eventually gives way to more well-known torment. Everybody seems to love it, and that’s fine.
