CAMERON SMITH

 

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I don’t mean to say that Cameron Smith sounds like Bruce Springsteen, but the Fort Worth singer-songwriter’s new single reminds me of a few of the Boss’ biggest hits from his particularly melancholy trio of albums of the late ’70s/early ’80s. Springsteen’s “Badlands,” “The River,” and “Atlantic City” all feature characters who have had their dreams burned and buried by the bait-and-switch promises of postwar America, for whom a life of mediocrity was the best they could hope for in the wake of Vietnam, Watergate, and mile-long lines at the gas pump. For the people in “Poison Summer,” even mediocrity seems out of reach. Whether they’ve been laid low by America’s toxic political climate, COVID, or addiction, they’re stuck in a societal fabric that’s threadbare and worn where it isn’t already ripped, and every route forward looks like a tightrope with no net below. It’s bleakness borne of increasingly diminishing options. Doesn’t that sound nice?

It does the way Smith sings it, for despite all his burned-out ennui, the man is a font of good melodies, and sung here in a tone that sounds almost exasperated, they evince the sort of beautiful heartache that makes the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” hit so hard when you’re an adult. Yet instead of nostalgia for Gen X’s collective, faded-family-photo childhoods, Smith would be content if the world could just take a 10-minute break from collapsing in on itself.

Recorded and mixed in January by John Pedigo (The O’s, 40 Acre Mule) at Modern Electric Sound Recorders in Dallas and mastered by Jordan Richardson (Son of Stan, Oil Boom) at Electric Barryland in Justin, “Poison Summer” came out of a period in September 2021 when Smith was attempting to write a song a day.

“It’s very much from a time when I was slowing down and thinking about what to make of the world after all the big bad in the early 2020s,” he said. “Some of the songs wound up being more about peace and tranquil acceptance in the melancholy of nature. Others wound up about the inner battles of seeking that refuge in an unforgiving environment.”

In “Poison Summer,” it’s the battles that never seem to end that are bumming Smith out the most. As the song nears its end, Smith lays into his hook like he’s kicking the bumper off a car that’s let him down too many times. You can feel his frustration simmering every time he sings the refrain. “You got a problem with the problem again / Poison summer under your skin.” It’s like being pressed into the gunwales of a ship that’s sinking because it’s on fire, yet what seems to be the most tragic part is at the end, when Smith repeats that he’s “lost in time.”

“What was on my mind a lot then was this idea that we’re the new lost generation,” Smith said. “For folks like my teenager, they had an entire formative experience disrupted. Their high school social lives [were] just totally fucking sandbagged, and then there was just all the personal loss through death, not only from the virus but from addiction and isolation.”

It’s the kind of song you want to hear when you see another week of triple digits on the horizon or when you find making rent is even harder than it was last month or feel bad because you’re tired of being outraged — whether it be at a rigged justice system or a friend who can’t or won’t let go of destructive habits.

Smith’s weary melody and jangly guitar lopes along a mid-tempo groove courtesy of drummer Nate Wedan (Somebody’s Darling) and bassist (and regular Weekly contributor) Patrick Higgins (Understudied, O.Deletron, The Spiral Sound), and keys and vocal harmonies by Katie Robertson (Genini, Chucho) lend the song some atmospheric sparkle. You can certainly hear Smith’s affinity for songwriters like David Berman and Phoebe Bridgers in the track’s plaintive chord progression.

Smith said he’s going to track “some sort of album” in October at Blackstone Recording Studio in East Fort Worth with engineer Mark Randall. Whether or not he includes this with that collection remains to be seen, but if it’s a harbinger of Smith entering his “beautiful bummer” period, we’re here for it. If the world is running on fumes and our friends and family keep checking out, at least there’s a songwriter who knows how to articulate our exhaustion so artfully. – Fort Worth Weekly

“Through love and pain, Shine encapsulates a special and sacred moment in time.

…After a decade of leading rock bands, Smith’s solo career is just starting to blossom. The boundless nature of his creativity will surely produce uniquely thoughtful perspectives, entangled in captivating musical phrases. . .

The lyrics of the album cast healing into the ether, as Smith draws upon his own memories that are universal to the human experience.” – KXT 91.7FM

“Shine feels like the next step in a natural progression of Cameron Smith’s writing and cement a developing maturity that seems well-honed and confident as well as it does intimate and contemplative. Highlighting Smith’s lyrical acumen, the tracks are presented simply, unbothered by slick production or lush instrumentation, yet with a fullness achieved by other means. There’s a seeming ease to his verses, which weave stories of nostalgia, growth, loss, and a tranquil hominess to the sonic textures that wrap around the listener as comforting as a plump down blanket.

…The last few years have seen exponential growth for him as a songwriter, and this is simply the latest peak scaled by the ever-prolific songsmith.” – Fort Worth Weekly

Cameron Smith is a singer/songwriter from Fort Worth, Texas, best known for fronting captious garage punk outfit War Party and his most recent project Sur Duda—the clever, observational indie pop band that shares a name with the self-invented pseudonym Smith previously used for his solo work. Though he maintains each of those projects, the volume of his songwriting is outpacing, and, perhaps, outgrowing both of them. Smith’s obsessive passion for songcraft has pushed him into ever-evolving directions, resulting in his most inventive and urbane effort to date, A Good Way to Say Goodbye.

Though Smith’s nimble lyrical meditations have always been the centerpiece of any of his previous works, A Good Way to Say Goodbye highlights his epigrammatic wit and dactylic prose all the more by stripping the songs to their most raw and vulnerable core. Pared down to solo acoustic guitar, plaintive harmonica, and occasional organ flutter, Goodbye breathes the mournful air of homesick cowboy songs and gives new voice to the tender musings and whimsical editorializing Smith is known for.

From the funereal opening title track to the dusky closer “Forsaken,” Smith’s agile finger-picking and the characteristic quiver and rasp of his singing voice contour this intimate collection of arresting ballads, peppered with thoughtful introspection and half-smile social commentary. Along the way, Smith brings the listener as close as a whisper while he ruminates on themes of juvenile indiscretions, his own maturation, and the exploitation inherent in celebrity culture. Doleful covers of songs by Vern Jackson and Leonard Cohen sit right in place among Smith’s originals, confirming that his own songwriting belongs among them. Solemn, playful, erudite, and mature, A Good Way to Say Goodbye is a great introduction to an artist who is proving he’s developing into a genuine songwriter’s songwriter. – Patrick Higgins, FW Weekly