Having started as a solo project of Oslo-via-Malmo based artist Johan Hansson Liljeberg, Smiling is now a full band completed by Johan Arvid Ingvarsson (Mary Anne’s Polar Rig, New Banke), Julia Wiklund (New Banke), and August Glännestrand (LAV SOL, Liv Andrea Hauge Trio). They’re now set to release their third album ‘Why Are You’, a record designed to challenge and captivate in equal measure.

‘A Pound for a Pound’ opens with some Pavement-esque scuzzy and detuned guitar and motivational words: ‘You have to walk, you have to swim’. ‘Plastic Ducks’ follows with self-deprecating lines (‘I think too much, I think I’m dumb’) and quirky twists. It finishes with a demand for an apology over some deep bass. ‘When It Rains It Pours’ has more of a twinkly emo sound as Johan shares fond memories and asks someone to ‘forget what you believed in’.

‘Shotgun’ is more in the Death Cab for Cutie vein with waves of synths and the feeling that the world is closing in: ‘I’m riding shotgun. I left the lights on. Nobody’s home’. ‘For the Largest Time’ is another more experimental tone with plenty of glitches and electronic drums that fractures in faltering style, while ‘Norwegian Soccer’ heads back into a space somewhere between Sunny Day Real Estate and Explosions in the Sky.

There’s some confessional storytelling on the penultimate ‘All the Wonderful Things’ – ‘I am done with heartache, I’m done with adventures’ – before ‘Rain Maker’ closes the album with Mew-style distortion and glacial beauty. This is a record that will leave you Smiling.