The Smile (Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner), “Cutouts.”

Cutouts is the second full-length album from The Smile in 2024. The supergroup composed of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, along with Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner, has achieved a level of productivity they were unable to match in their previous bands. For fans, the benefits are tangible: more noodly, synth-heavy jams to keep you moody.

Cutouts offers a cornucopia of analog bleeps and bloops for fans of vintage synthesizers. The album’s opener, “Foreign Spies,” floats its “Blade-Runner”-like vibes on gauzy synth washes. “Don’t Get Me Started” has a similar energy but gives way to a pulsing conga-like beat, before becoming a spacey, minimalist jam. The song traverses vast sonic vistas in its lean six minutes. The minimalist piano on “Tiptoe” blooms into reverb-drenched washes of blurry sound. Rain is falling silently against a window, somewhere.

Elsewhere on the album, Greenwood’s guitar wizardry takes center stage. Weird looping guitar riffs propel the groove of “Zero Sum.” “Thinking all the ways the system will provide/ Windows 95,” Yorke sings over the frenetic chaos. “Eyes and Mouth” features similar angular and groovy guitar, but Yorke’s vocals and lush strings take the song to strange new soulful places. “Soon to complete the transformation/ And beginning all this all over again,” he sings during the song’s elegant chorus.

Cutouts also features some mellow acoustic guitar. The album’s closer, “Bodies Laughing,” has a vibe that recalls bossa nova, while “Instant Psalm” achieves its grace from the elegant interplay of guitar, bass and drums. “Emptiness has many forms/ The only thing is to listen/…  And loneliness is a way to drown,” Yorke sings.

Cheery stuff.

“Colours Fly” features a vaguely Middle Eastern feel. The album travels around the musical world, without ever getting out of bed.

The album ends strongly with “The Slip” and “No Words” showcasing all the musicians’ talents. Skinner’s drumming brings every groove on the album alive, but these later tracks are particularly good examples of his tremendous feel and incredibly light touch. “The Slip” gets cosmic with analog synths as Yorke sings, “A black hole at the center of the galaxy/ Being pulled, being pulled, being pulled down/ Nice and easy.”

While the album covers a wide array of sounds, the operative term is “mellow.” Cutouts is music for a rainy day. The band never rises to the galloping angry punk of “You’ll Never Work in Television Again,” from 2022’s A Light for Attracting Attention. Similarly, none of Cutouts‘ ballads feel quite as fleshed out and polished as the debut’s “Free in the Knowledge.”

The Smile’s increase in productivity means more music. Both of the band’s 2024 releases, including Wall of Eyes, have felt more immediate and intimate than the debut. Whether these albums warrant as many replays as the debut remains to be seen. But in the meantime, if you’ve got to make a long drive aboard your spaceship through gray weather or cosmic nebulas, The Smile has got your soundtrack covered.