John Frusciante marveled at Kurt Cobain’s “complete celebration of insanity-type scream,” so much so that he told MTV2 that listening to Nirvana made him imagine what it must feel like to be the physical conduit for such a powerful sound. Alex Ian Smith, the primary force behind the New York-based project Railings, sounds nothing like Cobain, but his voice induces similarly vicarious listening. In “Breaking the Bong,” the opening track of Railings’ 2017 album, ) (, he darts from guttural highs to velvety lows and then breaks into an effortlessly clear falsetto. It warrants the most preposterous-sounding comparisons: Prince meets David Lee Roth; David Thomas with the lung capacity of Benny “The Voice” Mardones.
Since 2012, Railings have been an enigmatic presence on Brooklyn’s DIY circuit. Other than Smith and bassist Sean Liljequist, it’s unclear who is currently in the band; Railings’ social media accounts have been dormant for years. After releasing a half-dozen records that explored a proprietary blend of psychedelia, funk, soul, and noise, they seemed to have ground to a halt after 2020’s Chud Up. But in the first week of this year, Railings ’26 appeared with just one X post to promote it. Where Chud Up’s whirling synths and prog-punk rave-ups suited Smith’s unhinged performances, on Railings ’26 he sounds comparatively restrained in service of his most streamlined collection of songs to date.
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Inscrutable Bandcamp tags like “asbestos fields” and “culinary shears” do little to describe how Railings’ music reconciles arch chaos and sophisticated melodies with the apparent influences of quiet storm and no wave. But from the jump, Railings ’26’s “industrial” tag feels apt. A corrosive noise loop and intermittent snare-kick-kick-kick beat ominously announce opener “The Canyon” before flangey, chromatic jazz chords lay a noirish foundation for Smith’s eerily deadpan vocals. The song vamps where Railings used to weave and wind, its ever-busying rhythm section building tension atop its harmonic simplicity. “Part Time Resident” derives intensity from a more elemental idea, its fuzzy techno bassline all but refusing to give way to a smooth B section. “You say you’re broke, I know what to believe,” Smith sings (accusing someone of lying on their taxes, maybe?). Unlike New York’s many speak-singing chancers, his percussive hiccup after the word “broke” (“broke-AH”) shares more DNA with Michael Jackson than Mark E. Smith.
These songs illustrate the massive noise Railings can generate with a few basic musical ideas, and on the final chorus of noise rocker “Stack the Layers,” Smith jumps an octave, showing he can still dial up the fastball when he needs to. But on the record’s moodier R&B-leaning fare, he seldom breaks from his winking baritone, even playfully enhancing it with pitch shifting on “Krewe du Jieux.” Shrouded in reverb, Smith hasn’t sounded this distant since the experimental sketches of Railings’ self-titled debut.
