Forget an Oscar. You’ve made it in Hollywood when bands start writing songs about you. Montgomery Clift yielded tributes from two of the most consequential bands he never lived to hear. Robert De Niro invited Bananarama out for a drink after they turned his name into a synth-pop earworm. More recently, Drew Barrymore served as an unwitting muse for both R&B megastar SZA and frat-rap darling Bryce Vine.
Sydney Sweeney is only 27, but she’s gaining on those luminaries already. Both Ken Carson and Midwestern indie-rockers Smut have named songs after the Euphoria star. The rage rapper’s “ss” is crude and anatomical, Smut’s “Syd Sweeney” its inverse; powered by empathy and angst, the Smut single rails against a culture that turns young actresses into household names, then rips them to shreds after they employ their sexuality onscreen. “Poised for production/Made in your idol image/You strip me down to feel good,” Tay Roebuck sings over palm-muted power chords, identifying with Sweeney’s plight. Eventually, the song mutates into a scorched-earth, metallic outro: “When in the end/She’s a woman and you’re on her again!” Roebuck screams.
This heavier, more bombastic side of Smut flourishes on Tomorrow Comes Crashing, the Cincinnati-born, Chicago-based group’s third album. Smut’s previous album, 2022’s How the Light Felt, carried a dreamy, mournful pall befitting songs inspired by Roebuck’s sister’s death and drew comparisons to both ’90s dream-pop legends like Mazzy Star and Cocteau Twins and contemporary shoegaze revivalists. Tomorrow Comes Crashing, their first album with bassist John Steiner and drummer Aidan O’Connor, retains a fondness for sculpted Clinton-era guitar tones but takes influence from poppier touchstones, like Green Day and My Chemical Romance. Roebuck has cited loving MCR for “the singing and the theatrics of it all,” which made her want “to be as desperately emotional as I could for each of these songs.”
That comes through on “Syd Sweeney” and on the thundering opener “Godhead,” which finds Roebuck perfecting a pop-punk wail before the song abruptly flames out at the 01:45 mark, like a sullen teenager storming off during an argument. Even a moody break-up tune like “Dead Air,” which at first seems like a return to dreamier textures, breaks into an indelible chorus that The Matrix might have penned for Liz Phair in the early aughts. Roebuck has the charisma and the versatile voice to pull off these pop moves, though the record’s angstiest moments can feel a bit sophomoric. “Spit,” a punkish outburst about industry frustrations, seethes from one acidic slogan to the next (“I’m tired of acting lucky to be here/Break my back, lean in the spotlight”) without much of a melodic anchor. As a sentiment, it’s righteous, but as songwriting, it lands as clichéd and thin.
If Smut have often been pegged as ’90s indie fetishists, this material won’t grant them an acquittal. But at its best, Tomorrow Comes Crashing masterfully melds Smut’s dreamier sensibilities with bigger hooks and a potent alt-rock crunch. Notice how a synthesizer motif doubles the titular refrain on “Touch & Go,” or how layered harmonies reinforce Roebuck’s introspective hooks on “Burn Like Violet,” and it’s clear that Smut’s poppier instincts are serving them well. “Sunset Hymnal” moves fluidly from a shoegaze overture that’s a kissing cousin of Ride’s “Dreams Burn Down” to an arena-ready chorus. Music like this no longer commands label budgets big enough to get an A-lister like Sydney Sweeney to star in your video, but a band can dream.
