Smut releases are so few and far between that each new entry in the Chicago quintet’s discography feels like an informal re-introduction. If you were familiar with them in their embryonic stage in their native Cincinnati, you might associate Smut with the dense sludginess of their early demos: gothic garage rock interred under a thick layer of fast-setting distortion, à la Perfect Pussy. Arriving three years later, their proper debut, End of Sam-soon, preserved the band’s gravelly timbre but molded it into explosive choruses and searing riffs: a brief checkpoint in their oeuvre that hinted at broader ambitions. After another three years, which included a move to Chicago, Smut debuted on Bayonet Records in 2020 with a bite-sized EP that once again captured the band in a liminal stage, peeling off exterior fuzz to make room for trip-hop breaks and 4AD-esque gothic intrigue. The band’s sophomore album, How the Light Felt, is the first Smut release to end with a period rather than a comma. Building around Power Fantasy’s college-rock scaffolding, the LP is a rigorous, decade-spanning study of the band’s favorite 1990s guitar tones—derivative, but cleverly arranged to avoid rote nostalgia.
The rough-and-ready edge of Smut’s earlier work makes it tempting to draw comparisons to jangle-pop touchstones of the earlier half of the decade—bands like Blake Babies, Teenage Fanclub, or the Ocean Blue—but on How the Light Felt, they eagerly borrow from the sleek, commercially viable wave of shimmery guitar pop that flourished soon after Velocity Girl and Radiohead shared space on the Clueless soundtrack. The difference is subtle, but a song like “Person of Interest,” for instance, takes more aesthetic cues from the Sundays’ third and final album, Static & Silence, than their better-known debut. Though the song juxtaposes twee romance with the grisly details of a murder investigation, its polish allows subtle quirks to surface. A slightly sour keyboard arpeggio imbues folksy acoustic chords with an air of mystery as Bell Cenower’s basslines wriggle anxiously.
The band enlisted Stephen Street, best known for producing for the Cranberries and Blur, to mix “Let Me Hate,” a tribute to frontwoman Tay Roebuck’s late sister that channels nebulous chord changes reminiscent of Slowdive’s “Alison” into the anthemic structure of Street’s best work. Opening with airy arpeggios and the fleeting recollection of a dream, the song builds from uncertainty to an assertive coda in which Roebuck repeats the titular phrase, letting syllables lilt and contort like Dolores O'Riordan before her. Though one of the more musically straightforward tracks on How the Light Felt, it’s perfectly sequenced for emotional impact.
The band sounds the most assured, however, when it fully embraces the sleek studio panache of Y2K alt-rock. How the Light Felt’s first and best track, “Soft Engine,” opens with a barrage of tremolo effects that is oddly reminiscent of Jakalope’s Degrassi: The Next Generation theme song, riding kitschy breakbeats, carefully deployed feedback squalls, and woozy dream-pop chord changes. The other bookend, “Unbroken Thought,” uses a cozy bit of Sixpence None the Richer-esque folk as a test subject on which to experiment with trip-hop scratching and intense EQ filters.
Smut have developed two distinct and satisfying sounds in tandem: a well-oiled spin on late-’80s guitar pop and a more laid-back riff on the adult-contemporary trends of their childhoods. Though they have the chops to convincingly recreate classic sounds without making them seem like cheap imitations, a lot of the appeal on How the Light Felt lies in its unabashed fan service. Initial listens can feel like leafing through an aural I Spy book, searching for the winking trope or nod that confirms your own historical savvy. It’s a fun concept, albeit one that occasionally works too well for its own good: Tunes like the title track may remind you so much of Mazzy Star that you’re unconsciously reaching for So Tonight That I Might See before Smut’s song fades out.
On the record’s penultimate track, “Morningstar,” Smut land on a combination of ideas that elicit a hazy sense of nostalgia, but one that feels less explicit than the retromania that pervades the rest of the band’s work. Blending industrial drum fills, knotty guitar riffs, and blurred synths, the song stands out for good reason: It eludes comparison to anyone else. Though it warps and crackles like a degraded VHS tape, the track points to a possible future for Smut that integrates their vintage rock preferences into a more electronic context. For now, How the Light Felt takes a successful swing at shoegaze-y alt-rock revivalism. The hooks hit hard, the mix is immersive, and, most importantly, their arsenal of late-20th-century references is too deep to run dry just yet.
