The Smashing Times

The pockets of jangle that spring up these days seem to be pretty regional. The SF/Oakland crowd has been well celebrated, the Aussies rule a kind of slackened ‘90s aesthetic, and the UK has a nice thing going around the Tough Love / Prefect axis. Yet, The Smashing Times exist as an outlier in this landscape, and one that deserves all the attention they can get. The Baltimore band owes an admitted debt to Television Personalities, culling their name from the band’s 1980s Rough Trade single, but on their latest outing, they move even further beyond the tips to their namesake. The band had a knack for eschewing the stylistic rut on Bloom, and they continue that tradition on This Sporting Life. The Treacy trajectory still snags their arc from time to time, but the band injects quite a bit of smudged psychedelics this tme, rendered in lollipop hues, weaving Paisley Pop among a love for the ‘60s 12-string strummers that set it all in motion.

The band often prioritizes propulsion over overt hooks, sending the listener spinning through a sensory sojourn of jangles that seem to close in from all sides. That quality lends itself nicely to the band’s touch of prismatic warble, letting their love for Three O’Clock get a bit roughed up in the Tascam. The record extends the charms that curled around Bloom, deepening their devotion to the swooning fringe of the indie pop index. They’re still tugging at the tails of Jasmine Minks, The Deep Freeze Mice, and Biff Bang Pow! while making it seem like the most natural route for a pop band. This isn’t the kind of record that’s ever gonna be set up for mainstream success, but for the bin rummagers, YouTube deep dive archivists, mail-order pop purists, this one’s going to wind up an essential.

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