I couldn't let this album stay on Amazon with one misleading (maybe even slightly misguided) review and only two stars to its name. White Williams debut is an outstanding collection of neon-colored neo psych pop songs that brings to mind not so much Beck and Girl Talk (whose main connections to White Williams are their shared interests in sound pastiche and, in Girl Talk's, case a tour with White Williams and Dan Deacon) but instead vintage glam and new wave, especially Roxy Music, Marc Bolan, and Berlin-era Bowie. While the lyrics remain artfully abstract and largely unimportant (a quality which may also be responsible for Beck comparisons), the production here is fantastic. While this is far from music that will appeal to people looking for emotional resonance and a clear-cut message, Smoke is an album that will make forward-thinking music fans think, "This is exactly what today's pop music should sound like."
