The Smile: Cutouts (digital outlets)

It only seems like yesterday (it was January) when we wrote about the new album by The Smile -- the band of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood with drummer Tom Skinner – and acclaiming it as very strong independent entity outside the Yorke-Greenwood's original outfit Radiohead.

That album Wall of Eyes (when added to their debut A Light For Attracting Attention) drew us to conclude that was a group on its own independent journey.

And now comes their third album and second this year under a title which almost sounds deliberately underplaying, as if these were songs which just didn't make the cut for Wall of Eyes.

In one sense that is true – they were mostly recorded in the same sessions – but these are far from inferior pieces.

In fact . . .

Put in context, although it may again be a vehicle for them, in the eight years since the last Radiohead album A Moon Shaped Pool, Thom Yorke has released two soundtracks and a third solo album. Jonny Greenwood has ticked off three soundtracks, numerous guest appearances and arranging jobs.

The speed at which Smile albums arrive suggest it's something more than an occasional side-project.

Wall of Eyes was a beautiful, innovative and coherent album and this album follows a similar path of electronic grandeur (Foreign Spies), disruptive takes on pop (the string-enhanced Tiptoe, The Slip) and jerky, Talking Heads/Feelies pop with Fripp-like feverish guitar figures (Zero Sum, Eyes & Mouth).

Greenwood's work beyond Radiohead with the Rajasthan Express and Israeli rock musician Dudu Tassa perhaps accounts for the exotic rhythms and sound of Colours Fly, and the six-minute Don't Get Me Started offsets a stalking keyboard part with exhilarating percussion and an echoed production creating a sense of tangible depth as the piece changes shape.

There's also busy soul-pop (No Words) with a psychedelic keyboard part and Yorke's swooning vocal on the acoustic ballad Bodies Laughing.

Taken together, Wall of Eyes and Cutouts – adjacent to the adventurous spirit of Eno's early solo albums – make an impressive body of work to be taken seriously but sounding like a band enjoying itself.

With that double-header – and throw in the debut -- Radiohead aren't much missed.