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Smoosh - Withershins

In late 2004, two sisters named Asya and Chloe, collectively known as Smoosh, released their debut album, She Like Electric. The catch? The girls were only twelve and ten years old, respectively, at the time. Just under two years later, their sophomore effort, Free to Stay, followed. Both albums were filled with catchy, high energy, cutesy indie pop songs which, though obviously displaying the girls' youth and relative inexperience and naivety, also showed a lot of promise. They were less notable for their actual content and more for the future potential contained within the sisters' enthusiasm for writing and performing their own music. It's been more than four years since Free to Stay now and that long break between albums seems to have turned out to be the best thing that could happen to Smoosh because with their latest offering, Withershins, they've undoubtedly delivered on that early promise. In fact, it's nearly impossible to believe that the mature young ladies Asya and Chloe, now eighteen and sixteen, have transformed into once wrote a hyperactive (yet totally adorable) rap song about soccer called "Rad" - they've grown up a lot in the past six years. They've also added another band member: their younger sister Maia, fourteen, on bass. And, most importantly, their sound has drastically changed; of course, that's not exactly surprising considering a pretty large chunk of their young lives has passed by since the days of She Like Electric. Apparently, in the past few years, the girls' music taste has changed and evolved along with them. Withershins sounds less like sugary indie pop and more like Eisley if they had stuck with the darker, denser sounds of their earliest EPs, layered, shimmering harmonies wrapped up in brooding, atmospheric vaguely post-rock instrumentation and melodies that are both instantly memorable and shockingly mature. Even Asya's voice, which has developed beautifully, would fit in rather effortlessly with those of the DuPree clan; she still has a few immaturities and slightly distracting little quirks to work out but she's got plenty of time left for that. Her lyrics also remain rather general and simplistic but considering she doesn't have years of life experience to draw on like many songwriters do, it's difficult to fault her for that and I'm sure they'll only continue to improve as she gets older.

Besides, the most impressive aspect of this album is clearly the melodies and instrumentation. That's when it starts to become truly hard to believe that these girls are still just teenagers. Are they the most complicated, difficult compositions to write or perform? Probably not but they're definitely not kiddie stuff either. These are intricate, layered, ever-changing, and, most importantly, adult melodies and they show off just how talented the girls are at their chosen instruments. When you take a moment to sit back and think about it, it's pretty astonishing to realize that this is a sixteen-year-old playing the drums and an eighteen-year-old keyboards with such proficiency and control. Strip away the instrumentation and you find that the lyrics are rather repetitive and don't leave much of an impression but with the music there to prop them up, they suddenly become magical. Songs like the gorgeous opener "Finnerödja" and "The World's Not Bad" rely mostly on atmosphere to make an impact and they succeed at this easily. "In the Fall" and "The Line," meanwhile, are memorable for the addition of strings and horns, little instrumental embellishments that turn good songs into spectacular songs. And "We Are Our Own Lies" and "Dark Shine" build swirling, dynamic soundscapes out of a couple simple repeated musical motifs. Withershins is a great album because of the way all these little things come together, the way one simple idea is built on top of another until, together, they become something beautiful and immense and often quite stunning. And it's even more of an accomplishment considering several of these songs have been around for two or three years by now, which means that the members of Smoosh were even younger than they are now when they wrote the core of this album. The second half is generally a bit weaker than the first but the songs are still more than worth listening to and the only true misstep on the entire thing is "Aaarplane Song," a puzzlingly-titled detour into electropop that doesn't really have any discernible melody to grab onto and comes out sounding a bit of a half-finished mess. Still, one strike out of eleven isn't bad at all.

It's a pretty amazing experience to listen to all three of their albums together because hearing them in quick succession makes the growth all the more obvious and extraordinary. The transition from She Like Electric to Free to Stay was really just a tiny baby step but the transition to Withershins is more like a leap across several oceans and continents. And the most exciting part is that I believe the best is still yet to come. If these sisters choose to make music their grown-up careers as well, they've still got several more years - and hopefully several more albums - ahead of them and they can only go up from here. Now I'm going to go sit in a corner and cry because they've managed to make me feel like a complete underachiever.


Withershins (which, depending on where you get your mp3s from, you may also see titled The World's Not Bad; they apparently changed the title at the last minute) is only available digitally at the moment and I'm not sure when or if it will be seeing a physical release. But, despite my usual aversion to paying for intangible objects like digital music files, I recommend you buy it anyway because it's self-released, they are donating part of the funds to several non-profit organizations and the girls themselves definitely deserve what little they can get out of your purchase as well.
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Shannon

January 2020

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