How much amusement you'll get out of Nick Vicario's latest punk rock scud Smirk will depend on your tolerance for deliberate opacity. He's not going to telegraph any kind of expectations for you and you end up just having to roll with whatever punches he throws at you. Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I appreciate him not accommodating the audience for his music in this way.
Smirk's 2021 EP followed the release of the band's LP earlier in the year, the latter being a compilation of two cassette-only EPs, originally titled Cassette and Cassette II, respectively. Unlike its sibling, EP consists of all original material, written specifically for this project (as opposed to Public Eye, or one of Nick's other bands, and later released as Smirk), but doesn't feel like it is from this era- actually, it doesn't feel grounded in anything from the 21st Century, or reality- period.
On EP, it's clear that Nick is drawing from guitar tones and playing styles that appear on specific records from the late '70s- but it's hard to place your finger on which records, in particular, are helping him articulate his sound. A lot of rock of that period had a kind of hazy, muddy varnish to it that tended to smear over identifying markings and insignia and these sort of lived-future, ugly-time jumper characteristics definitely infect Smirk's sound and make it difficult to pin down. I don't think I'm saying anything offensive when I point out that EP sounds like it could have been recorded at any point in the last forty years and might have ended sounded roughly the same. As it shakes out, you can't really put too many labels on what Smirk is doing here. Ultimately, you just have to trust the feel.
The album begins with a song called "Death To Smirk," a sunburnt surf march, defined by an ulcerated groove that carries with it callously carefree melody under a title that lets you know just how thoroughly Nick is committing to the bit. "Precious Dreams" genuinely feels like it is being sung by someone who recently changed their medication and may need to have their dosage reassessed, while the guitars chords being performed are not so much riffs as concessions Nick has pried out of his instrument- a certifiable monstrosity of a song that eventually finds its way to a moment of unsettled clarity in the psychedelic antichamber of the bridge. Then there is"Minuscule Amounts" which feels like it shares some DNA with Radioactivity, but only as a result of a teleporter accident- so honestly, there is no telling where the song picked up the contaminants that pigment its sound.
I've heard a lot of misguided but sincere comparisons of Smirk to Gang of Four and Devo- both of which are way off. The guitar work and singing is much closer to a cross between the Dils and Dow Jones, but even these parallels tend to confuse rather than clarify what you are hearing here- especially when the dollhouse electrical fire sounds of "Staring At Screens" and the chicken-wire blues that beefs up the always-on-the-run closer "Lost Cities" enter the picture.
It's also very difficult to tell what any of these songs are about as well- which is may be for the best...sometimes, the less you know about an artist's intentions, the better. This intense level of obscurity and blunt spectacle would seem off-putting, if it weren't for the surprisingly level of earnestness the project is approached with. Whatever Nick is doing here, he really seems to believe in it, and his confidence sells it pretty hard. There are a ton of wiry-sounding garage punk bands out there, but only one Smirk. Don't settle for less.
