The Smile announce Wall of Eyes, their second album

The Smile announced their second album, Wall of Eyes, on Monday 13 November, for release by XL Recordings on 26 January 2024. Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner have put out the title track with it, in a black-and-white video by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Nine dates follow in March. They open at Dublin's 3Arena on 7 March, which Nialler9 says is the band's first show in Ireland, and end at Alexandra Palace in London on 23 March. A presale opens at 9am UK time on Wednesday 15 November, and general sale follows at the same hour on Friday.

Nigel Godrich, who produced the 2022 debut A Light for Attracting Attention, did not make this one. Sam Petts-Davies produced and mixed it, in Oxford and at Abbey Road Studios in London, with strings arranged by the London Contemporary Orchestra. Petts-Davies co-produced Yorke's Suspiria score with Godrich, and Rolling Stone counts only one other Yorke album since The Bends without Godrich at the desk.

Five of the eight songs are already known. “Bending Hectic”, first played at Montreux in 2022, came out as a single in June, and four more have been played live. Only the title track, “I Quit” and the closer, “You Know Me!”, had not been heard.

Anderson directed Yorke's Anima film and Radiohead's “Daydreaming” video. His film for “Wall of Eyes” starts with Yorke alone in a room, facing a projection of a giant eye, until a sudden wind blows him out into crowded streets and bars, where he drifts through the crush and nobody touches him.

Wall of Eyes, tracklist

The Smile, March 2024