The Smile Adapts, Reworks, and Evolves the Radiohead Formula

Radiohead’s latest album A Moon Shaped Pool was released almost precisely seven years ago, and they haven’t performed in just shy of five years.

Total dismay at their absence, the lengthiest in their decades-long career, has been alleviated by the formation of the Smile, which comprises Radiohead founding members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, plus British jazz drummer Tom Skinner. The trio, which began writing during COVID-19 lockdown, has been releasing music at breakneck pace, dropping their full length debut A Light for Attracting Attention in May 2022 and busting out additional non-album songs throughout the course of their tour last year.

The new group’s sound is slightly more esoteric than their forebears (there are hints of Yorke’s highly experimental solo project, Atoms for Peace), but lyrically, they explore similar themes of personal emotional introspection and criticism of corrupt politics and corporate interests. Another notable shared trait is their fanbase. The Smile’s audience is amassed primarily of Radiohead diehards, and there are plenty of them in Austin — a total of around 5,500 packed out consecutive sold-out shows at ACL Live on Sunday and Monday, the band’s first 2023 stateside tour dates (following two nights in Mexico City) of a 17-city run.

I was able to make it out for the second show, which featured the same mesmerizing 19-song set list as the previous, but in an alternate order. The sequencing reflected the group’s natural ebb and flow of dreamy captivators (beginning with upright piano-driven “Pana-Vision,” featuring saxophone from opening act Robert Stillman) and heavier, frenetic epics (the following track, “Thin Thing” — marked by Yorke’s groovy basslines and Greenwood’s mind-bending arpeggios — introduced that other category).

Yet it’s arguable that the bulk of their songs defy any notion of congruent styles. Mid-set new song, “Colours Fly,” for example, mixed prog jazz beats via Skinner, sections of eerie guitar emitted by Greenwood running a violin bow over his strings, and Yorke effusing and looping echoing melodies and shouts reminiscent of Radiohead’s sonic saga “Everything in Its Right Place.” Following that, “Free in the Knowledge” saw Yorke conjuring sinister synth that sounded remarkably similar to sections of Greenwood’s unnerving score for 2007 film There Will be Blood.

Among the most moving moments in this free-flowing mode were encore-enders “Bending Hectic” — a freshly released cut that culminates in the heaviest, most alt-rock leaning guitar riffs from Greenwood since 1997 Radiohead rager “Paranoid Android” — and “Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses,” a gloriously groovy yet decidedly disorienting adaptation of a song first officially released by Yorke in 2009. Still, those were frequently balanced out by stripped-down compositions like the tranquil “Skrting on the Surface.”

The latter tune underscored how the Smile can satiate the appetite of Radiohead’s most ardent fans, those chomping at the bit for a new album; it’s a rework of a number first played in bare-bones form all the way back in 2001 — a gift to keep the zealots gratified. The song also illustrates another similarity between the OG group and the current trio: their ability to keep people guessing. Yorke, Greenwood, and Skinner have already confirmed that a second album is on the way and debuted eight in-progress songs live so far, so who knows how many more they’ve got in the bag.

If Radiohead never reunites, at least, it seems, we’re witnessing the next phase in their evolution, and thankfully there are no signs of them disappearing anytime soon.