The Smile – Bodies Laughing Review

We can moan on about the lack of political status The Smile has, time will not vindicate them that is for sure, but their instrumental interest is what defines them. Take Bodies Laughing, as an example. We are quite right to kick at the lacklustre responses of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, and yet their music remains electrifying in all the right ways. Definitely the best rip of material from their unexpected third album, Bodies Laughing was the shot of brilliance Cutouts needed, especially after its sudden release. But such is the case of prolific material and whatever reason The Smile had for dropping this album, out of the blue, we are better for it. The instrumental brilliance is the reason to keep returning to it, but then you can get some stronger thematic and deeper lyrical meanings elsewhere. What it is, though, works well.  

Dig a little deeper into Bodies Laughing and you get the feeling of uncertainty in the face of improvisation. This is not to suggest that Bodies Laughing is anything but a tightly wound and to-the-letter performance, an album closer that holds its own, but it does feel like a construct of jams and the frustrating clunk of instruments that are not quite mixing. They strip it back entirely, then, creating this jagged and whining body of work which relies, more than anything, on an acoustic guitar fumbled into place. One of the more understandable songs from The Smile is found here. The laughter of another party, some stranger out there, is enough to knock us off our pedestal. But life is all about reclamation, or at least it is in the context of Bodies Laughing, and much of it is about the return to the top. No matter what happens, the climb must continue.  

That much is charted on Bodies Laughing. The build of instrumentals is a defiant one, the lyrical qualities from Yorke hitting a much better stride here because, while they may not comment on the specifics of the world around him, they do hit on a contagious paranoia which no doubt affects those who feel their backs are up against the wall. Bodies Laughing does plenty with this message and the additions made by Greenwood and Tom Skinner make all the difference – an instrumental unity which does well to sound firm yet wavy and loose. There is never an increase in the tempo, never a defiant screech or a lower ebb from Yorke, he steadies course and lets the instrumental moments do the talking. That is the great success of Bodies Laughing.  

Their art-rock style lacks depth at times but it certainly comes through on Bodies Laughing. A shimmering defiance can be found in rapid and emotionally charged moments throughout, and it may be the best song of theirs in the sense of written reliability and instrumentally focused works. Bodies Laughing allows the band to prove themselves as connected not to the world around them, but the people in it. They still struggle to make those wider, sweeping commentaries and if they did it would likely be cringe-inducing. Instead, they focus on the pull of personal appeal, on the structure that comes from defiance in the face of those shifting shadows which deploy mockery at all the wrong times. Bodies Laughing stands as a defiant, instrumentally fascinating track, ripped from a very consistent album.