On their no-budget, 2009 self-titled debut album, Chicago's Smith Westerns trafficked in youthful garage-pop, singing of good times and romantic frustrations to an accompaniment of lo-fi fuzz. The subject matter was much the same on the group's 2011 follow-up, Dye It Blonde, but the production took on almost Mott the Hoople-levels of sheen—a clean, glam-rock sound that really let the group's summery hooks pop. The band is at work this winter on a third album, which guitarist Max Kakacek has teased as “dreamy and spacious.”
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