by B. Snapp (@snappstare.bsky.social)
It’s no surprise that Nick Vicario has flipped the switch again. The sonic territories exhumed on Speculative Fiction feed a guitar-rock lover’s appetite, hitting the palate of late ‘70s and early ‘80s garage punk, post-punk, power pop, even traces of indie pop. From the first pick slide on the opening “Greeting” (sung along with Crisis Man co-band member Ross Farrar, who is also frontman of Ceremony), to an unexpected bossa nova beat appearing later, it’s probably fair to use the word eclectic, at least exploratory on a theme. Painting from a similar palette, to mix metaphors, the literal and literary red thread is alluded to in the choice of vinyl color, “Translucent Bloodshot”. That coincides with a lyric in “Sistine Junk” and matches the dripping blood on barbed wire in the cover art.
“Eyes bloodshot
From an endless glare
Warmth from the screen
But there’s nothing there”
Quite the contrary, there is something here, and it’s Nick Vicario himself. As the title of the album suggests, there’s a spec-fic nature to the content of the lyrics, fantasizing through memories of bad times and therapeutically reimagining them, rehashing them and learning from them. If there weren’t these horror stories spun from real-life occurrences, there wouldn’t be a man standing who lived through them all to tell the tale.
There’s this unique speculating approach to the sounds on the record. What if… could try this, try that… Would this work like this?… For most punk bands (especially in the ‘80s), by the time they get through five years of playing and making records, if they didn’t already break up and move on, it wasn’t unusual to hear them charting new ground and trying on different tempos and layering harmonies, experimenting with other instruments. It wasn’t always successful. But for Vicario, it’s more natural. He records a lot of the tracks on his own, pulls in inspirational drum beats and manipulates them for his songs, and takes his time blending the whole thing together, providing Easter eggs for the astute listener.
There’s bar-band guitar rock, garage punk, and, again, that pick slide to kick things off that harkens back to last year’s single, “Domestic Dog.” It’s like Smirk’s pulling meaty parts from The Avengers to The Adicts, The Damned to Dead Kennedys, Social Distortion to Slayer, and deboning them through a power-pop sieve to make stock for a new concoction. Another band that comes to mind (it was a worthy recommendation) is Stiff Richards, but in comparison to their album DIG, Speculative Fiction steps out of the garage into a warehouse, out the back into a bat cave. The experimentation is far-reaching and resounding. While it’s a departure from the first two Smirk records, as a work of art it offers a glimpse of what to expect from the same artist moving into a new era.
While there are ragers like “Shit Song” and “I Shall Be Released” that kick the tempo in the realm of punk, but never as fast as hardcore, there are also more indie-rock post-punk bangers like “Going Off to Die” that shine on the album. “Abide” is another prime example of mixing things up. With its slower mid-tempo grind, churn and spit, it has the drive associated with a crank-wave indie approach.
“Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away
Change and decay in all I see
Help of the helpless, oh abide with me
Then we’ll be
Be set free”
The song ends with a call to action to sell off everything (check out the official music video) and go dancing under the moonlight. There are images like this in Vicario’s writing that evoke an escape plan from a dystopian world, paralleling some of the choices he had to make to break through an apocalyptic, self-destructive phase of life.
Nick Vicario’s personal life is a well-known factor at play in his songwriting, influenced by the experiences of moving from the West Coast to the East, sobering up and settling down, getting married and starting a family. Focusing on the studio, recording and mixing in the spare time from being a devoted parent and partner, seems to have lent itself to personal shifts in the tone and arc of the songs. Time changes things in just a handful of years, and life moves on, and the band plays on. While touring, there’s a different set of players on the East Coast and the West Coast versions of Smirk. Without getting too speculative, he has talked about wanting to move again and getting a Florida band together. Who knows what the future holds?
For now, sticking with this third album over the last month has proven it's a grower on repeat. With a little help in the mix from his friends, Maxime Smadja, Seve Sheldon, Ian Rose, Ryan Mangione, and Ross Farrar, there are a multitude of dimensions to unpack with Speculative Fiction that reward every spin, just like a good novel or collection of short stories. Nick Vicario is writing for himself, but enticing his audience closer to a cathartic narrative many can identify with.
Released by Smoking Room — who handled the cover layout alongside logo work by Porky & Criminal Class and photography by Crayonton — it’s another notch in the belt for Vicario. The record sits right alongside label mates Intermission, Ex Pilots, and They Are Gutting A Body of Water (what a live lineup that would be). Clocking in just under 45 minutes across thirteen tracks, Speculative Fiction exhales a smoldering haze of fuzz and punk grit into the room.