- Critic score
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- By date
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Alternative PressTo call this "sunstroked desert hallucination mood music" sells it short. It actually transforms the atmosphere of the space in which it's played. [June 2008, p.132]
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Smile is one of the better heavy releases this year, and one of the best in the band's extensive catalog.
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Near the album’s close, the psychedelic insanity of Ka Re Ha Te Ta Sa Ki is a whirlwind of pounding drums, circular chanting, spasmodic guitar noise and violent soloing that perfectly exemplifies Smile’s fusion of panicky, heavy abrasiveness and lush, melodic and dreamy sprawls.
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More hooks (and cowbell) make Smile the band's most accessible album, but Boris haven't softened. [May 2008, p.94]
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UncutA cover of 'Flower Sun Rain' by '70s Japanese supergroup Pyg sounds like the Super Furries, while a 16-mkinute doom jam with SunO)))'s Stephen O'Malley is as titanic as you'd hope. [May 2008, p.91]
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MojoSmile finds them advancing that set melodic agenda and playful rearrangement of classic rock DNA. [June 2008, p.109]
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The inherent awesomeness of Boris is essentially intact.
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While the American Smile is a worthy follow-up to Rainbow and Pink, it's the Japanese version of the album that makes it a masterpiece.
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While Smile may be inarguably more accessible than their previous releases, it still has enough cloaked treasures to keep the diehards interested.
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The WireA comfortable listen, occassionally diverting, but by no means a groundbreaking album. [May 2008, p.51]
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Here the hairier, dronier doom aspects of the band’s sound have here largely been put on hold to focus on songs, and the results are the sort of mixed-bag of serious stunners and unfocused ideas that we might expect from a superbly talented and intelligent band trying to eke out a new path in the wake of a defining album.
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Smile is their exquisite-corpse sequel, a near-automatic exercise in drawing inspiration from anybody but themselves.
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Smile does have it's special moments, but the problem is that they never amount to anything better than the star parts on their previous efforts.
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Though excellent in brief parts, much of the album is still worrisome, at times specifically seeming to document a band running out of steam.