Athens, Georgia has lengthy since handed into lore as one of many essential, if unbelievable, hubs for memorable trendy rock music. Prompt Smile continues that custom of their wayward but impassioned method with their new EP 4 x 2 and its 4 tracks stand nicely alongside the band’s finest work since first forming in 2013.

URL: https://instantsmileband.com/dwelling

Prompt Smile’s drummer Erin Berry and guitarist Greg Phoenix’s imaginative and prescient for the unit’s creative signature is a seamless synthesis of various musical kinds right into a cohesive, identifiable entire. Their major body of reference is pop music from the Sixties-Nineteen Seventies however these musical money owed don’t consign them to retro standing. The unique careening art-rock of “Thorazine Bender” boasts a definite lo-fi strategy, sure, and there’s a particular elasticity in Phoenix and Berry’s regard for formal guidelines about enjoying to the association.

Nonetheless, nevertheless, it’s a cavalcade of musical twists and sudden detours that hold listeners on their toes. Phoenix’s songwriting is basically instrumental, however the lyrics replicate the identical outlier tackle composition defining the music as nicely. We’re in recognizable territory, with out query, however Prompt Smile’s “Thorazine Bender” slaps a brand new coat of paint on time-tested parts.

The duo’s audacious tackle the early Sure traditional “Time and a Phrase” works. Phoenix dials into the music’s inherently hopeful nature and whereas he can not attain the identical heights as Jon Anderson, Phoenix’s singing masters the wanted emotion and provides his interpretation an fringe of earnestness listeners will get pleasure from. Echoes of surf rock permeate the primary quarter of “Loopy” earlier than this Berry-penned tune reveals added influences akin to punk, straight-ahead rock, and pop. Berry’s plaintive voice packs loads of rock and roll verve and there’s an exploratory spirit inhabiting this efficiency that makes it good for the stage. It isn’t troublesome listening to Prompt Smile stretching out on any of those tunes.

BANDCAMP: https://instant-smile.bandcamp.com/album/4-x-2

Their unbelievable cowl of Deep Purple’s “No No No” from the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame band’s Fireball album upends the funky exhausting rock theatrics of Purple’s tackle the observe in favor of riff-driven and alt-rock/punk-inspired energy pop. Such an outline, actually, doesn’t even start to do it justice. The angular, bare-bones assault that Prompt Smile takes with this observe and its predecessors has no instant antecedent within the modern rock music scene. You may’t assist however commend them for completely revamping this obscure Purple gem – what’s the purpose of carbon copy covers besides tribute, moreover, Prompt Smile isn’t Deep Purple, and vice versa.

4 x 2 is a quick but compelling pay attention. Greg Phoenix and Erin Berry get pleasure from uncommon artistic parity that isn’t a token act however, as a substitute, a mirrored image that they understand the entire is bigger than its particular person elements. Prompt Smile is clocking in at a decade as an ongoing musical unit and this EP doesn’t sound like several holding motion. They sound as very important as ever and their creativity burns shiny. We are able to anticipate them to stay part of the present panorama for a lot of extra years to return. 

Mindy McCall