During their North American tour last fall, just half a year past the release of debut A Light For Attracting Attention, the Smile were vigorously workshopping new material for a second album. It seems the momentum has carried forward. The subject line for a new email blast tacking a few more festival dates onto their previously announced summer tour reads: “More North American tour dates for when we are let out of the studio.” At the end of the message, the Radiohead offshoot reveals, “we’re deep in recording, week 7.”

Could LP2 be out by the time the Smile return to North America this summer? Don’t rule it out. And if the quality of the unreleased songs they were playing onstage is anything to go by, this album might be even better than the last one, which landed among our picks for the best of 2022.