Smilex have quietly spent the last couple of years trading their wild punk/sleaze roots in for a more polished, commercial sound and ‘X’ (produced by Ace of Skunk Anansie fame, no less) is a prime example of this new direction. In fact, you could sort of guess the Ace connection even if you didn’t know, as the style and sound is very reminiscent of his former band. It’s a perfectly constructed, anthemic rock tune, veering between a downbeat verse, tense pre-chorus and a typically blustering, spitting, big rock chorus. Nothing is excessively showy, but everything functions perfectly to serve the whole. Drummer Pat Holmberg stands out for sounding like he’s on the edge of going Cadbury’s Gorilla on the thing but is just managing to restrain himself.
The press release suggests that this is Smilex doing delicate (“showing their breadth of dynamics and depth of emotion”) but don’t be fooled. Yes, the verses are all clean picked guitars and cracked vocals, but the body of the song is still the balls-out rock and roll of the Smilex we all know and love, although Lee’s trademark scream is somewhat more buried than usual in favour of a hard-edged, bitter chorus line. They’ve been showcasing this song a lot recently, and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to compare it played both in the tiny, sweaty confines of the Port Mahon and being blasted from the Riverside Stage at the massive Cornbury Festival. Either way, it turns heads and loses none of its impact being stripped back for the stage.
The only real criticism you can level against ‘X’ is that, consummate showman though he is, Lee’s lyrical dexterity and maturity isn’t quite keeping up with the band’s musical progression. Still stuck in a world of bad sex, drugs and teen angst, his evocations in clumsy couplets of things once flourishing now being dead, friends now being enemies etc. now seem a little tired. Maybe you wouldn’t have it any other way from Smilex, but it’s starting to sound just a little bit like a cliché. Maybe the intention is to keep the edge and steer the band away from getting too mainstream, but given the standard they are playing at these days, the lyrics issue might be the clincher for whether they make it to the big time proper or not. Still, this is Smilex we’re talking about, not a Nietzsche covers band, and they’re still streets ahead of the drivel that passes for rock these days.