Menu
· Conor Welsch
Credit
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood have always thrived in the liminal space between dread and beauty, and Wall of Eyes, the sophomore album from The Smile, continues that journey with eerie precision. A project that began as an experiment in urgency - born out of lockdown frustrations - has now solidified into something more fluid, more expansive, and undeniably potent.
Produced once again by Nigel Godrich, Wall of Eyes plays like a sonic fever dream, its tracks oscillating between intimacy and vastness. The album leans on organic instrumentation, letting acoustic guitars, sparse piano chords, and Yorke’s fragile falsetto stretch across eerie, cavernous spaces. When the rhythm section kicks in, there’s a sense of structured unease, as if something just out of sight is shifting beneath the surface.
Tracks like the opener, Wall of Eyes, set the mood with delicate yet haunted string arrangements, feeling both inviting and ominous. Sam Shepherd (* Floating Points*) contributes a ghostly electronic influence, and the mix leans into these textures, creating an air of unease that doesn’t feel far from Kid A-era Yorke.
Lyrically, Yorke remains cryptic yet emotionally raw, painting his usual abstract images of alienation, surveillance, and personal reckoning. There’s a greater emphasis on space between words, the weight of the unspoken, much like later-era Talk Talk or the jazz-inflected minimalism of mid-2000s Radiohead.
Bending Hectic is the album’s showstopper, an eight-minute odyssey that starts in quiet disarray and explodes into a post-rock crescendo. It’s The Smile at their most unhinged, with Greenwood’s guitar work reaching an apocalyptic climax reminiscent of There Will Be Blood-era tension.
Meanwhile, Read The Room is all staccato rhythms and off-kilter urgency, evoking a sense of claustrophobia. Friend of a Friend pulls things back into fragile balladry, a moment of respite before the inevitable unraveling.
Drummer Tom Skinner (Sons of Kemet) is once again the wildcard in The Smile’s sonic palette. His jazz-trained unpredictability keeps each track from settling too comfortably into a groove. He operates in negative space, pushing and pulling Yorke and Greenwood away from predictability, which gives Wall of Eyes its dynamic pulse.
Greenwood’s arrangements lean further into his love for orchestral compositions, adding weight to already dense compositions. His guitar work, always masterful, alternates between shimmering atmospherics and jagged urgency, playing in conversation with Yorke’s restrained yet evocative vocal lines.
If A Light for Attracting Attention felt like a bridge between side project and full realization, Wall of Eyes cements The Smile as a fully-formed entity - distinct yet deeply connected to the restless experimentation that defines its creators. It’s an album of tension and release, of restraint and outburst, an exploration of liminal spaces that never fully resolve but leave a lasting emotional resonance.
Best Tracks: Bending Hectic, Friend of a Friend, Read The Room
For Fans Of: Radiohead’s Amnesiac, Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, Floating Points & Pharaoh Sanders’ Promises
Final Score: 8.5/10 – A masterclass in subtle tension and sonic craftsmanship.