Smart & Stupid is merely a four track taster EP of Scream Hello‘s forthcoming full length, Everything Is Always Happening, but they manage to prick my ears regardless. Managing to somehow encapsulate summer perfectly, they sound like a mixture of good era Feeder, So Long Astoria-era Ataris and a fair amount of Fountains of Wayne too. As a fan of all three of those bands, it really isn’t a surprise that this EP stands out amongst the others sat here to review, and, while it is not without imperfections, it is hard to notice too many holes.
Two of the songs are longer than they probably ought to be (one of the songs is over six minutes and another is close to touching it), sometimes dragging towards the end and losing the punch of the first three minutes or so of the song. The third song, ‘rrrrrrrrrrrrrr’, is described in the press release as taking it ‘one step beyond with a gorgeous melody and haunting piano‘ which I was hoping would sound something like a Something Corporate song, but instead just stands out like a sore thumb by sounding like a mix of Band Of Horses and the kind of rock song you might imagine a band playing at the end of Ghost Whisperer during a moving moment.
In the third paragraph of the press release the PR company really try to push the image of this band bringing rock music of old back, referencing their guitar solos and crunchy riffs. The riffs are not totally apparent and the solos are the kind of Weezer rather than Lynyrd Skynyrd. But then, directly after this paragraph they seem to remember that they have overlooked the most important element, this is a rock band producing pop hits. It sits in the background perfectly and has been a pleasure to listen to during the brief glimpses of summer that we have had recently, but if you look closer they’re well constructed songs from a band that could appeal to many. The full length comes out this summer and I only hope that I get to review that too.
Dan