- Bob Dylan once said that every line of A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall could be the first line of a song. For Melbourne’s Smile, the reverse is true: every dramatic cut from the five-piece’s ambitious debut LP Life Choices could be a fitting closer to a classic late ‘90s pop-rock album.

Musically, the album is a straightforward, catchy and relaxed affair, defined by clap-along drums, slow tempos and the kind of painstakingly constructed, swirling morass of guitars that Kurt Vile has perfected on his ultra-smooth latest two albums. The songwriting is strong too, especially on the melancholic Jesus Song.

Thematically, Smile sound like they are trying to bring the jangle-pop of Twerps and The Stevens, and the widescreen ‘90s FM rock of Wilco or Oasis, into some kind of conversation. As such, Life Choices sounds like a classic Chapter Music record, performed with the gazed-out sensibilities of Deerhunter and buried beneath a thick layer of studio gloss.

This super-high production quality has both its negatives and positives. On the downside, the songs are too stage-managed to allow for any spontaneity. I have the same problem with Malabar by Songs, which also fills every crack of breathing space with more and more guitar. The extended jams of tunes like Amess St and Pascoe Vale are never allowed to grow naturally, remaining ultimately a little static.

On the other hand, though, Life Choices is consistent and complex, rising and falling with carefully introduced layers of sound. When bass chords are introduced in the glorious last minute of Stoned, the already urgent song gains a subtle lift.

The key question is whether the band’s bridge between high-budget aesthetics and low-budget concepts works. The record listens like a breeze on its own, but does it hold up in the wild? The melodic Cuntry Life sounds like Dick Diver’s Hammock Days crossed with Yuck’s Shook Down, while the album’s longest track Pascoe Vale bears more than a passing similarity to Scott & Charlene’s Wedding’s Epping Line, albeit minus the fragile rawness. Yet these songs are too polished for jangle-pop.

Questions then arise concerning taste and authenticity: do Smile mean what they sing about, or are they merely settling comfortably into shallow slacker tropes like the smart yet soulless living room of their brilliantly ghastly Ken Done-style cover art?

I believe that the band are genuine, and that their ambition is laudable. What we are left with is a solid pop record that is crammed full of melody and whose slight overproduction is forgivable in context of the consistency of the overall product. The weakest moment is opener Still Waiting For The Man; otherwise, Life Choices remains compelling all the way through. An accomplished debut from a promising band.

- Henry Reese.