Less than a year and a half ago Constant Smiles posted ‘Paragons’ (Sacred Bones, 21), a work that, after three previous albums and partly thanks to his signing by the renowned Sacred Bones label, finally activated the radar around the North Americans. Even so, the changing group managed by Ben Jones –the main architect of the matter– surely received less attention than it deserved, given the latent quality of an album that left excellent sensations in its wake.
This continuation confirms impressions, pointing to a definitely interesting group that, despite not inventing anything, manages the elements very well and has a nose for creating songs between good and magnificent within their own coordinates. Precisely, the group goes from working indie-folk (with a certain fondness for falling towards American style or jangle-pop) to accumulating environments tending towards shoegaze, of a specifically melodic and even neat type that likes to adopt synth-pop forms. . This is what happens with a sequence that begins with the manifest reverie (and almost post-punk) of “Finding Ways” and ended in a coherent manner with the solemn six minutes of “Off Again”. In between, other notable ones sneak in, such as “Gold Like Water”the single “In My Heart”gems like “Here And Gone” y “I Hope You Are Well”or the eighties “I’m On Your Side”.
Yes ok ‘Kenneth Anger’ could be placed half a step below its predecessor, the album as a whole invites you to rush its delicious textures and immerse yourself in search of that most valuable cuts that the decalogue in question includes. A work, in short, greedy enough to go on to consider Constant Smiles a most reliable group and, by the way, also one of those with good taste and totally recommendable without fear of subsequent reproach.