Five Mile Smile started life in Belfast circa 2000 before splitting in 2003. Eleven years later they have decided to pick up the pieces and ‘get the band back together’ as the Blues Brothers would say. They’ve managed to put out 4 tracks since the reformation with Walk Thru being the latest.
Walk Thru is a blues laden slice of overdrive rock – in contrast to their last single Call To Arms which was heavier in the blues camp, this one leans heavier on the rock side of the tracks. The vocals are as scuzzy as you can get and perfectly compliment the grimy thick guitar riffs they accompany. It’s worth having a listen through the rest of the songs on their Soundcloud to see how diverse and different the songs sound; listening to them in chronological order gives an idea of how they’re progressing as a band as time goes on. There’s a nice almost ‘live jam’ feel to the track and just over half way in there’s some intricate fiddly guitar to remind us of their credentials. The track has a surprisingly large sound for a 3 piece band with guitar, bass and drums all playing nicely and very much feeding off each other to explore tempo changes, breakdowns and a lack of fear to take the song anywhere they please, a kind of freeform exploration at work. If you don’t like distortion then this isn’t the track for you, there’s not a clean note in this whole song, this is swamp water blues rock and I like it.
