Q: What Sort Of Sounds Do The Sorry Kisses Make?
A: “Keep Smiling” is the third SK album to be released on their own Desert Mine Music label. The early SK sound was characterised by woozy, mellifluous folk-rock, dreamy big-sky country music and crunchier grunge-pop; favourable comparisons were made with the early Slumberland roster, the C86 scene, The Lemonheads etc. Nice sorta sound. You’d like it. Occasionally The SK’s would dial up the ROCK, edging towards a speaker-rattling attack more akin to the heavier material of The Breeders, Hole, PJ Harvey yadda yadda. And you’d think: “huh. This is great. They should do a whole LP of this.”

Q: Have They Done A Whole LP Of This?
A: Well, pretty much...yeah. Sure, the melodies, the pop sensibilities, the song-craft and the traditional SK sense of wide-eyed-wonder remain. It ain’t like they’ve been buried under an avalanche of electric guitars... but, no doubt about it - for fans of the SK’s occasional rock freak-outs, ‘Keep Smiling’ is the album you’ve been waiting for. The Sorry Kisses have made A Loud Album. A heavily distorted, brutally fuzzed, tar-pit sludge coated riff-rock grunge album, as close as they’ve come to Sonic Youth or The Pixies. Check out the roaring feedback hurricane of “What’s The Big Deal” for proof. Even lighter moments – “Postcards” – come bathed in a squall of wailing distortion. According to analysis produced by my team of researchers, ‘Keep Smiling’ is on average 57.3% louder than any previous SK material, and 96.8% louder than anything on Donny & Marie’s 1978 “Winning Combination”LP.

Written by Paul 'Fuzz' Lowman