Let’s Go – Smile

Let’s Go, so quite literally lets go listen to this band from Kamloops (what a great name for a town) Canada’s sophomore album ‘Smile’.  This is a band that genuinely don’t like sticking to a genre or giving us the listener a chance to settle and think “aha got them now, I know what this music is”, because that’s just not gonna happen, the moment you thunk they have just given you a heavy hardcore laden track that flashes past at the speed of light, like ‘Rectified’ for example, then they hit you with a kind of hardcore/rock/metal cross over in ‘State Of Decay’.  But then some call this Skate Punk, I personally call it “headfuck shit”, a musical wonderland of all the things you like in one place, what’s not to like right. 

Born in 2018, it does seem a little odd that this is a band that wants to reproduce the sounds of the California 80’s scene, but then if you really listen, this is an album that kinda celebrates all that has been, takes the best bits and tries to breath some 2020’s life into back into it, do they succeed?, yes in a sickeningly good way, I say this, because I actually wanted to not like this album, going backwards is never a good thing, unless your simply looking to reminisce and make a tribute album, this is not something that excites or gives the ears a good time, but this album fucked off this thought almost totally, with only a tiny nagging  of, “hope they don’t ever fall back and forget this” 

Favourite tracks have to be title track ‘Smile’ which never gives up and encapsulates just about all that the band have to be proud of musically, ‘Our Song’ just because its a song of unity and lets just keep playing shit even if you don’t want us to, coz this is so much better than 9 to 5, and then ‘Pixels’ a ballad that isn’t a ballad, its uplifting sound belies the dark Trueman Show reality of human existence, a planet twisted and shaped by our own bullish nature.

Like falling into a pit of Guitar, Drum and Bass wielding snapping piraña and being pulled out just before they start stripping you of the last thread of sinew from your bones, musically unrelating and vocally unforgiving.

Out on November 24th via High End Denim Records

Wander on over to the bands FACEBOOK for much more info