Maverick Smith’s “We Make Fire, They Make Smoke” lands not with a thud, but with the distinct, satisfying crackle of something catching alight. It’s a title that carries the grit of the Ohio Valley in its consonants, a resolute statement from a band – Paige Bosic on commanding vocals and rhythm guitar, Sean Boynes sculpting soundscapes on guitar, Jim Courtney’s intricate drumming, Charlie Kovach’s incisive lead lines, and Chuck Ellis’s anchoring bass – clearly weary of the ephemeral. They seem to be asking, quite simply, what’s real anymore?
The nine tracks within are a fascinating ramble, less a straight highway and more like following an absorbing, slightly unpredictable river through ever-changing terrain. Alt-rock is the primary current, yes, but Maverick Smith steers into eddies of punk urgency, the dusty sincerity of alt-country, even moments where orchestral strings bloom unexpectedly, like discovering a pressed, forgotten wildflower in a dense volume on quantum mechanics.
It’s a testament, perhaps to Boynes’s hand in production and the band’s collective instinct, that this genre-fluidity never feels like a jumble; every sonic turn serves the song’s emotional core. No samples, no digital trickery taking precedence – just the honest hum and thrum of real people playing real instruments, which, frankly, feels like a quiet act of rebellion in our current age.
Lyrically, this album is less a tidy story and more like sifting through a drawer of deeply personal, unlabeled mementos – a sudden jolt of reckless joy here, a half-faded snapshot of regret there. There’s a potent strain of that particular nostalgia, the kind that ambushes you – like unexpectedly catching the scent of your childhood home on a stranger passing by – a sharp, beautiful ache for something irretrievably past.
This bittersweet recognition of time’s relentless flow chafes against a clear-eyed disillusionment with the flimsy structures of modern connection, what the band’s themes describe as a “curated unreality.”
“We Make Fire, They Make Smoke” doesn’t attempt to soothe your anxieties with platitudes; it’s more inclined to throw another log on your internal fire, then sit with you companionably by the blaze it creates.
It’s complex, a little frayed at the edges like a beloved old coat, and pulses with a stubborn, resilient spirit. Does it, in its raw honesty, remind us that even when surrounded by the billowing, insubstantial stuff, a single, authentically struck match can still illuminate a profoundly dark room? I rather think it does.
