aaamusic | On 16, Aug 2010

And now from The Smiles And Frowns’ self-titled debut, we are handed the term sci-fi folk pop. I would say that the sci-fi here is more steampunk than Star Trek for those unsure, but there is no denying the assurance, grace and chiaroscuro noir magic of this short yet sweet album that featuring instruments that sound like The Beatles at their most whimsically shadowy playing an orchestral show in an old-fashioned concert hall. For the purest definition of this sound, ‘Cornelius’ blends fairytale lyricism with cheerful pianos, wholesome vocals and sombre violins, all filtered through a deep yet almost unnoticeable echo. In fact, you can almost hear the passing of time here – this is a pop record of a bygone era, something naïve made wise and contemplative by the passing of time. For every easygoing barbershop style song like ‘Sam’, where the clacking percussion and surreal melodic echoes caress the harmonised vocals into a sepia-toned lament backed by a bouncy reminiscence, there is a track such as ‘The Memory Man’, which is undeniably bleak with its ambient sounds of a train in a storm and the mournful harmonica. The warm vocals and rhythmic guitar coupled with a lilting piano puts the listener in mind of The Kinks hit hard times, as their sunny afternoon becomes a rainy evening. Uncertainty dogs this standout blues-pop song, but the message remains one of not necessarily hope, but of strength, and despite the soft melancholy here, the whole song has a core of quiet vitality and sense of looking to the future, pushed onwards with a rather addictive piano hook.

‘Huevos Rancheros’ skips and bounces like an old-fashioned fairground song, the marching band drums and giddy piano melodies weaving into the harmonised vocals and chords to create a whole image from sound, and one that fades away in a manner that many in fact be sinister as melodies slip to accidentals. This leads almost perfectly onto the haunting ‘March Of The Phantom Faces’, a shivering waltz played on the keyboard as a sinister glockenspiel chimes and percussion ticks like a clock. Despite the lack of vocals, this instrumental track bears all the gravitas and mesmeric storytelling ability of any self-respecting song, creating a real wonder of a piece that you will find visiting your mind in the strangest of moments.

We are then bought back to human life with the strummed acoustic guitar of ‘When The Time Should Come’. Bringing together fragments of an old dance and the ghost of early Pink Floyd into a resigned, echoing statement of defiant romanticism. The strings are employed with a sparing yet expert hand (a rare and welcome thing in the world of using strings in pop) creating a tantalising counter to the guitar and drums, retaining the otherworldly tone of the record.

‘Mechanical Songs’, in contrast, is the closest thing on the album to a modern pop track, heavy on the Syd Barrett-isms. The vocals are so drenched in effects they are barely human, and the droning keyboards and echoes, despite the use of a totally organic guitar and percussion, create the impression of listening to a 1950s vision of The Future: the kind where suburban families own hovercars. The blissful tone is tempered by the cold, sterile feel of the robotic effects placed upon the vocals, and what is, if not necessarily dark lyrics then a definite grey area.

This album is closed by ‘The Echoes Of Time’, a distinctly human-sounding slice of folk-pop sweetness with sunny guitars and cartoonish happy melodies. In any other context this would prove awkward to listen to, a lumpy piece of sentimental songwriting, however this a right context, if not the only right context, and so tacked onto a progressively stranger journey into the less familiar reaches of pop, we find ourselves rehabilitated back to the norm with possibly the most radio-friendly thing you could possibly put onto such a record.

This The Kinks-to-Doctor Who-via-Pink Floyd soundscape is not perhaps to everyone’s taste, as it requires time to get going and attention needs to be paid so the listener slips beyond the cute veil and into the wonderland heart of things, but I would hazard calling this a multi-faceted gem of a record. Although it does not even reach half an hour in total, each song is crafted carefully and passionately and this really does pay off, as ‘The Smiles And Frowns’ isn’t so much an LP as its own private journey into the charming unknown.

Author: Katie H-Halinski