New Music Friday: The best albums out Jan. 26 (and why they deserve reviews)

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The Smile. Frank Lebon/Courtesy of XL Recordings hide caption

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Frank Lebon/Courtesy of XL Recordings

The Smile.

Frank Lebon/Courtesy of XL Recordings

There's plenty about Wall of Eyes, the new album by the British rock trio The Smile, to remind you of the other band that shares two of The Smile's members. There's the calibrated-to-precise-levels-of-spookiness mix of electronics and acoustic instruments. There are a few bits of transcendently crunchy electric guitar work and more than a few bits of shrieking strings that could only come from the mind of Jonny Greenwood. And of course there is the unmistakable voice of Thom Yorke, that claustrophobically intense god of art/alt-rock.

But there's something about The Smile that resists feeling like Radiohead redux, and on this week's episode Ann Powers, Tom Huizenga and Sheldon Pearce get to the bottom of what makes Wall of Eyes so satisfying on its own terms. They also share new albums by Katy Kirby, Benny the Butcher and the trio of Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Reto Bieri and Polina Leschenko.

Plus: The discussion of those four great albums leads to a conversation between these three music critics about the state of the profession, which took a blow last week when the long-standing, much-beloved, occasionally-hated website Pitchfork was folded into the men's magazine GQ and much of its staff laid off.

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Featured Albums

1. Patricia Kopatchinksaja, Reto Bieri, Polina Leschenko — Take 3

2. Benny the Butcher — Everybody Can't Go

3. Katy Kirby — Blue Raspberry

4. The Smile — Wall of Eyes

Other notable albums out January 26:

• Bad Gyal — La Joia
• Willi Carlisle — Critterland
• evilgiane — #HEAVENSGATE VOL.1
• Future Islands — People Who Aren't There Anymore
• Kevin Gates — The Ceremony
• Philip Glass — Philip Glass Solo
• Sarah Jarosz — Polaroid Lovers
• Militarie Gun — Life Under The Sun EP
• Fabiano do Nascimento & Sam Gendel — The Room
• R.A.P. Ferreira & Fumitake Tamura — the First Fist to Make Contact When We Dap
• Gruff Rhys — Sadness Sets Me Free
• Ty Segall — Three Bells
• Astrid Sonne — Great Doubt
• TORRES — What an enormous room