Typically, when a band releases two albums in the space of a single calendar year it means that they recorded too many songs to fit them all on the first album and want to clear them out before getting down to the serious business of writing and recording more. In recent years we’ve seen that from The National, Big Thief, and Beach House, and there’s no indication that Cutouts, the second album from The Smile in ten months, is anything other than that.

You can usually tell this type of album by the uneven quality in the songs, especially as compared to the album that came before it. Big Thief’s Two Hands is the exception to this, and in terms of just putting all the good finished ones out there I think they learned their lesson with Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You. Normally, though, the songs range from finished and just didn’t fit to mostly done – maybe the lyrics aren’t polished, or maybe the final melodic motif that would have kicked the track up a notch never got written.

With Cutouts, there are some tracks that clearly have been finalized, maybe even in the months since the release of Wall Of Eyes, an album that will feature quite high up on this year’s Best Of list. Songs like “Zero Sum”, “Eyes & Mouth”, and “Bodies Laughing” would have fit well in the first two records, and they add some heft to the band’s rapidly growing discography. Tracks like “Don’t Get Me Started” and “Tiptoe”, though, feel more like filler that was gussied up to get an entire album up to speed. They’re never quite boring – in fact, there’s a lot of experimentation going on under the surface of everything there – but they feel like they’re missing some vital piece that could bring them up into a whole new plane of existence.

One thing that should be noted is that, on the whole, Cutouts is a lot more fun than Wall Of Eyes. There is a certain heaviness on the latter that appears to have lifted on the former – probably, again, because these are the next best thing to cast-offs. It’s always a bit of a jarring experience to listen to Thom Yorke having a bit of a laugh here and there, but it happens on Cutouts a couple of times. Forewarned is forearmed.

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