Stream The Smile’s Debut Album A Light For Attracting Attention And Our Accompanying Podcast

The Smile’s debut sounds a lot like Radiohead, but the promo campaign leading up to it has been about as far from a Radiohead rollout as you can get. Rather than shroud this new music in mystery until the last possible moment, the trio of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner has brought everything out into the open for basically a whole year. Ever since they made their debut on a Glastonbury livestream last May, the Smile have continued to pull back the curtain: first via livestreams both lo-fi and professional, then through a generous bounty of advance singles. By now you should have some idea of what you’re getting into.

I reviewed A Light For Attracting Attention as our Album Of The Week this week, and then I discussed it with Ryan Leas on this week’s episode of our live interactive podcast Callin Me Maybe. We had a fun, freewheeling chat about the Smile album and where it fits into the Radiohead extended universe, and our callers made some fascinating contributions to the discourse. So stream the album below, and then go here to hear our breakdown.

A Light For Attracting Attention is out now on XL. Purchase it below.