If you Google “smut band,” you might come across some regrettably scarring tumblr blogs about emo boy bands (if you don’t know what we mean, just keep yourself in the dark). But hopefully, after the release of the Cincinnati noisepop band Smut’s excellent new EP Sam-soon, search engine optimization will work its magic to bring in the music and leave out the, uh, other kind of “smut.”
Smut shares a producer (Saw Cowan) and a member (drummer Chris Campbell) with Leggy, another exciting garage rock band emerging from Cincinnati. But while their friends in Leggy veer more towards a lo-fi, dream punk vibe, Smut draws influence from shoegaze noise.
Sam-soon sounds like someone took catchy pop music, ran it through a distortion pedal, and added some funky guitar riffs – songs like “Blush” take us back to 80s Sonic Youth, especially when Smut’s lead vocalist Tay Roebuck adds some dark spoken word vocals. “Sweat down our backs running deeper to summer/a teenage voice cracks and we run home to mother,” she sings. Smut’s gothic sound is matched with equally eerie lyrics – on the EP’s opening song “Bones of Summer,” Roebuck sings, “Cemetery roses dry and stale/Pearly stitches painted pink and pale.” Mark that one down for your spooky Halloween playlist.
After a tour of Canada and the Midwest where they played with bands like Littler, Marge, and Heavy Petting, Smut is self-releasing Sam-soon, the follow-up to P U R S E, their 2014 debut. Listen to Sam-soon below:
