Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not might be a famous aughts album title by the Arctic Monkeys, but the contradictory phrasing is also a worthy descriptor for Sid Simons’ forthcoming album, Beneath The Brightest Smiles. Formerly known as GIRL SKIN, Simons has created a stunning nine-track project that both revels in contradiction and effortlessly fits together like an intricate jigsaw puzzle.
Simons’ sophomore album reflects his multicultural upbringing. Based in Brooklyn, Simons is technically a citizen of the world. Born in Portland and raised in Australia, Simons later moved to New York and later attended high school in Shanghai before moving back to New York by himself to pursue music. Initially, Simons played in rotating band lineups under the now-defunct GIRL SKIN, a moniker for releasing music that Simons wrote and produced in his parents’ basement and bedrooms. Today, performing under his own name, Simons has gathered a magnetic and poetic collection of songs together with the help of a backing band and superproducer Gordon Raphael.
Best known for producing the Strokes’ debut EP The Modern Age, as well as their first two landmark albums, This Is It and Room On Fire, Raphael was a natural fit to work with Simons, who draws sonic influence from the early-aughts rock revival group, plus their rowdy UK counterpart the Libertines, classic-rock shapeshifter David Bowie, and strains of Motown and Americana. Raphael flew in from his homebase in the UK to work with Simons, and together they fleshed out what would become Beneath The Brightest Smiles at Mercy Sound Recording Studios in the East Village.
“I have completely different influences,” Simons relates. “On this album particularly I wanted to kind of have a crosspoint between ‘60s soul and r&b, blended with a Meet Me In The Bathroom-era feel and Americana.
“Each song has a completely different feel,” Simons continues. “But I feel like it is all quite cohesive. Some songs were written four years ago, and then some were written three months ago. I'd saved those older songs because I knew they weren't going to fit on that first album.”
Sure enough, opener “WENDY” blasts into the room with stage-setting snare and a celebratory guitar solo. Backed by a propulsive chorus, Simons’ agile, lightly growling vocals tell a story, ostensibly about a woman named “Wendy” who’s “topsy turvy” and “can’t tell her left from right.” The joke, however, is that “Wendy” is not so much a real person as she is the voice of Simons’ malfunctioning GPS: “Wendy’s a little unsteady/ In a muddle day and night… Wendy’s never really ready… Her satellites just don’t align.”
Like “WENDY,” plenty of songs on Beneath The Brightest Smiles feature a wink-nudge moment. “There’s two sides of the songs,” Simons says. “This album has quite a happy, upbeat presence, and there's a lot of humor. I'm making fun of myself a lot in the lyrics and just making fun of life in general and how people take it too seriously.”
Meanwhile, other tracks lead with sincerity. For instance, the guitar-led “Toy Gun” is a lightly headbanging bop that finds Simons cheering on a childhood friend with chants of “we’re proud of you, kid.” Opening up about “Toy Gun,” Simons talks about the “rough upbringing” his friend faced growing up and how he “turned it all around.” He says, “It’s a song for him saying, ‘I’m proud of you for how far you’ve come. This is amazing, where you are now.”
Simons revisits that childhood relationship on the spare, acoustic album closer, “Please Stop Smoking Mum,” where his voice barely rises above a whisper. “It’s about how we’d sleep over at his house all the time as kids,” Simons recalls. “The song actually has nothing to do with smoking, really. But it's written from a kid's point of view. I remember just going downstairs and seeing his mom just completely strung out on the couch. She was a heroin addict. She would have a half-lit cigarette in her hand. I just remember thinking as a kid, ‘It's the cigarettes. That's what's affecting her.’”
On "The Stanley Song,” a twanging ballad that unfurls with grandiose strings, Simons humorously looks at the "combustible" relationship between him and his younger brother: "No one's gonna hurt you, Stanley,” Simons asserts before adding with a wink: “Except for me." Simons adds: "If most of the songs on the album are observational character studies, this song is very clearly biographical. It conveys my sense of responsibility to protect my younger sibling – and my singular right to mess with him."
Additionally, the jangling stomper “Dead Ringer” has Simons road tripping around the US and stopping in Houston. “Every house was the same, everyone looked the same, drove the same car, talked and walked the same,” Simons observes. “It had such an eerie feeling about it, I definitely didn’t want to stay for too long, but I knew a song had to be written.”
Later, the piano-led “Dirt,” which is where album title Beneath The Brightest Smiles appears, is a blossoming, earnest, and orchestral track that finds Simons observing how “the saddest souls have the brightest smiles.” “It's a bit self-explanatory,” Simons expands. “Just because someone has a beautiful smile, it could be covering something up that's darker. I think a lot of people walk around with a specific face on, but there's something underneath it all.”
Finally, the rollicking “Three Days” is “an observation about the current complexities of modern relationships,” Simons explains, adding: “Some of it is based on personal experience, some based on the experiences of friends. It’s about a couple who get together, one of them has a vision for the relationship's future but the other just isn’t there yet and how that causes friction.”
Featuring a range of moods and tones, the beautifully produced Beneath The Brightest Smiles leads with instantly catchy melodies, bright and bold instrumentation, and, best of all, Simons’ humor, wisdom, and frontman charisma. If nothing else, it is also a poignant look at how one person can contain multitudes.