Dorset’s Secondsmile have done well for themselves over the past couple of years. Now they’ve got to the business of their seconds album, on the ever interesting Big Scary Monsters records. For the uninitiated, they play angular indie with a swagger. I don’t ever buy this crap about bands pushing musical boundaries – because they rarely do. And I’m not going to agree with the suggestion that Secondsmile do, but if I read between the lines of the press release, ‘pushing the musical boundaries’ means they can play their instruments and don’t necessarily appeal particularly to Rancid fans.
This is a good album. The production does it no end of favours, but there are some good tunes on here too. They don’t confine themselves to one sound particularly – there is the odd bit of brass and some piano led quiet moments to mix with some pretty intense post-punk. There is a kind of Bloc Party sound going with the drums, and I reckon fans of BP would enjoy this. Secondsmile seem to be – and many people have tried but failed to take on the role – the missing link between bands confined to the NME and bands confined to Kerrang. This album does them justice, and I reckon they will go far….
Mike