Smith Westerns Dye It Blonde With Second Album

By Jon Graef in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 28, 2010 6:20PM

Lo-fi garage-glam quartet Smith Westerns have achieved a freakish amount of success for such a young band since opening for White Mystery at the behest of Alex White and playing house shows around Chicago.

The Northside College Prep High School grads put out two 7-inches on Hozac Records before the taste-making local label dropped the band’s debut full-length in June of last year. Tracks like the Gary Glitter-biting “Girl In Love,” with its slinky, shuffling beat and doe-eyed lyrics about teen love, proved popular with the Pitchfork set.

Since then, they’ve signed with red-hot Fat Possum records. The label’s not only has re-issued their debut record, but also is set to release an entirely new Smith Westerns record, Dye It Blonde. The ten-track set, the group's second, is due January 11, 2011. The band’s frontman, Cullen Omari, told Pitchfork earlier this year that the LP was influenced by '90s Britpop acts like Suede and Teenage Fanclub. Between those new influences and the Westerns’ steady diet of Nuggets, Bowie and T. Rex, Dye It Blonde already sounds like one of 2011’s most crazily melodic records. If nothing else, blonde is proving to be the color of excitement with Smith Westerns.