The anticipation surrounding The Smile’s highly awaited album, “Wall of Eyes,” reached a fever pitch when news broke that the album had been leaked a week before its official release date on January 26th, 2024. Even though Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood (Radiohead), 2 of the 3(Tom Skinner) band members, are no strangers to album leaks (most notably Radiohead’s 2000 masterpiece Kid A), the leak continued to raise several questions about the security measures in place for protecting artists’ work in the digital age.
In an era where music is easily shared and distributed online (and in some cases even given away for free by the artists–In Rainbows), leaks have become an increasingly common challenge for musicians and record labels. The Smile’s situation highlighted the vulnerability of even the most high-profile releases to unauthorized dissemination–assuming this was an accident and not another genius marketing tactic by Yorke and his team.
Fans who couldn’t resist the temptation found the leaked album on file sharing websites like ThePirateBay.org and Exystence.com. The lucky fans who found safe downloads were given an unexpected sneak peek into the band’s latest creative endeavor. “Wall of Eyes,” which bares an eerie resemblance to a 2009 Radiohead EP (Wall of Ice) that never fully saw the light of day, promised to be somewhat of a departure from The Smile’s previous album, A Light for Attracting Attention.
ALFAA’s first single, “You Will Never Work in Television Again,” was a straightforward post punk explosion that reminded many fans of Radiohead’s more guitar-oriented albums. “Bending Hectic,” the first single off of Wall of Eyes, on the other hand, is an intimate, slow paced, meandering sonic narrative that finally breaks into a cascading garage rock crescendo almost 6 minutes into the epic 8 minute journey. Many of the leaked, previously unheard tracks on Wall of Eyes follow in a similar vein.
Even though there are plenty of familiar anchors on Wall of Eyes, the noticeable differences from the previous album may be partially attributed to a change in the production team. Unlike a vast majority of Yorke’s previous projects, Nigel Godrich did not help produce this album. Instead, Sam Petts-Davies is the credited producer, who you may remember from previously producing the Suspiria Soundtrack with Yorke and several notable Radiohead tracks, such as True Love Waits and Spectre.
The album leak occurred on or around January 19th as copies of the highly anticipated album began to appear in the usual places such as “The Pirate Bay”. Wall of Eyes is still slated for an official January 26th release. It is not clear whether the leak will affect album sales, but there is no indication from the band or its management that they project a noticeable negative impact. If anything, the buzz around the album release seems to be growing, as word spreads of the leak.
