Crème de la CREEM

Crème de la Creem

SMIRK "Hope you’ll understand/We’re back/By unpopular demand.” That’s Nick Vicario, customarily self-deprecating in the one-time, would-be chorus of “Greetings,” the opener from Smirk’s new album Speculative Fiction. Though the quip wryly nods to Vicario’s years slugging it out in various punk and indie scenes to only semi-notoriety, it ends up a feint—buried in lo-fi scuzz, belying the album to come in both sound and scope.