''Pinewood Smile'' is the fifth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

released by British

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

band The Darkness. Produced by Adrian Bushby, the album was released on 6 October 2017 and is the first album by the band to be released by

Cooking Vinyl Cooking Vinyl is a British independent record label, based in Acton, London, England, founded in 1986 by former manager and booking agent Martin Goldschmidt and business partner Pete Lawrence. Goldschmidt remains the current owner and chairman ...

. It is also their full first album to feature

Rufus Tiger Taylor Rufus Tiger Taylor (born 8 March 1991) is an English musician, best known as the drummer for British rock band The Darkness since May 2015, and as a touring drummer for the Queen + Adam Lambert stage shows. He is the son of Queen drummer Ro ...

on drums, after Emily Dolan Davies left the band in 2015.

Background

Details of the album were first revealed in March 2017 on the band's Facebook page, and was estimated for released in late 2017. The album's title and more details were later revealed on 21 July 2017, with the album's title being revealed as ''Pinewood Smile'' and being given a release date of 6 October through

. The album was recorded entirely in Worcestershire in Vada Recording Studios and was produced by award-winning producer and engineer

Adrian Bushby Adrian Bushby is a recording engineer, mixer and producer. He works from his home studio in London, England and has recorded and mixed for artists including; New Order, Placebo, U2, Spice Girls, Feeder, Jamie T and Maxïmo Park. In 2008 he ...

, who has worked with other rock bands such as

Muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

Foo Fighters Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in Seattle in 1994. Foo Fighters was initially formed as a one-man project by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. Following the success of the eponymous debut album, Grohl (lead vocals, guitar) re ...

and

Smashing Pumpkins Smash may refer to: People * Smash (wrestler) (born 1959), professional wrestler * Moondog Rex, another professional wrestler who briefly wrestled as the original Smash, before being replaced by the above. * DJ Smash, DJ and music producer Art, ...

. That same day, the first single from the album, "All the Pretty Girls", was released. Three other singles from the album—"Solid Gold" and "Southern Trains" were also pre-released from the album on 18 August and 25 September respectively with "Happiness" following the album's release on 24 November. A live version of "Buccaneers of Hispaniola" was a pre-release single in April 2018 for the album Live at Hammersmith

Critical reception

''Pinewood Smile'' received generally positive reviews from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a

weighted mean The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 71 based on 7 reviews.

Kerrang! ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication ''Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one- ...

ranked the album as the 23rd best album of 2017 in their year-end list.

Track listing

* The vinyl version omits the track "Happiness" due to space limitations.

Personnel

The Darkness

Justin Hawkins Justin David Hawkins (born 17 March 1975) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and YouTube personality best known for being the founder, lead singer, and lead guitarist of The Darkness. He was influenced by rock bands of the 1970s and 1 ...

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Dan Hawkins Danny Clarence Hawkins (born November 10, 1960) is an American football coach at UC Davis. A former player and sportscaster, he served as the head football coach at Willamette University (1993–1997), Boise State University (2001–2005), and ...

– guitars, backing vocals *

Frankie Poullain Francis Gilles Poullain-Patterson (born 15 April 1967), better known as Frankie Poullain, is the bassist, bass player for rock band The Darkness (band), The Darkness. He was raised in Milnathort then Edinburgh, Scotland. He attended the Royal H ...

– bass, backing vocals *

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, backing vocals

Production

* Adrian Bushby - mixer, producer * George Perks -

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

* Mike Marsh - mastering

Charts

Singles

''Solid Gold'' peaked at number 5 on the Kerrang! Rock Chart in September 2017, while ''Southern Trains'' reached number 14 on the same chart in October of that year.Kerrang! Rock Chart, ''Kerrang!'', issue 1693, page 14.

References

{{Authority control 2017 albums The Darkness (band) albums Cooking Vinyl albums