Smoke & Mirrors (2010)

This is the one. Smoke & Mirrors was my entry point into Lifehouse, and it holds a place in my heart that no amount of critical distance will ever shake. It harks me back to a very specific adolescent stretch of my life, and to the night one song sent me spiraling through an entire discography. So I’ll say up front: I’m not a neutral party here. But I also think this is one of the most complete, most polished, most quietly ambitious records the band ever made, and I can defend it on the merits long after the nostalgia wears off.

It opens all in, literally. All In establishes the record’s more polished rock edge immediately, propulsive kick drum under lovelorn lyrics and a gruff, vulnerable Jason Wade. Just like the lyrics say, I’m all in, for life, on this band. The piano lines are the secret weapon, unexpected enough to keep the song from settling into straightforward commercial pop-rock. Nerve Damage follows, and I’ll admit it didn’t grab me at first, but as my ears matured I realized how much it kicks, and now it’s one of my favorites. It’s dramatic and spacious before it cranks the hog, and yes, that chorus could pass for Nickelback, but the atmosphere in the verses gives it real complexity. Jason’s voice is all grit here, and once the song hits the gas it refuses to let off, right up until the solo pulls everything back, mellow and David Gilmour-esque, every note given the space and time to linger on purpose.

The record’s radio instincts show up next, and they show up well. Had Enough was co-written with Chris Daughtry, and it plays exactly like a Daughtry hit, his voice apparent in the background, the whole thing high-energy and radio-ready. It’s a little straightforward, but catchy and honestly addictive. Halfway Gone became one of the album’s main singles and earns every bit of its replay. I still remember catching the video on the VH1 countdown one weekday morning and thinking, hey, it’s my Lifehouse guys, they’re on TV. It’s high-energy and impossibly singable. Then It Is What It Is swerves somewhere new entirely: Lifehouse does R&B. Those 2000s drum-machine textures, the reverbed piano, the production flourishes and melodramatic backing-vocal stabs add up to something that sounds unlike anything the band had done to this point.

The album’s emotional center is where it turns blue and smoky, exactly like the cover. From Where You Are is an acoustic, percussive ballad built on a looped fingerpicked riff and a whole lot of atmosphere, beautifully written and sung. And then the title track, which is the one that started it all for me. Smoke & Mirrors was the first Lifehouse song I ever heard, the one that made me buy the whole album on a whim, and I hold it as one of their greatest ever. It’s got twang, grit, passion, replayability, and melodies that flat-out kick. Falling In eases back into poppy soft-rock, a softly driving love song with 2010-era Barenaked Ladies-style keyboard accents, accessible and radio-friendly in a way that’s distinct from Who We Are, less about the songwriting playing safe and more about slick studio sharpening.

The back half is stacked with sleepers, which is where this record really wins me over. Wrecking Ball, my ringtone for my sister for years, thumps on floor toms under excellent backing harmonies and a fantastic hook, with faint live-studio crowd noise bleeding in as the final notes fade. Here Tomorrow Gone Today is what I’ve always thought of as the band’s club track, the Lifehouse dancefloor anthem, all studio-production bass and drum-machine textures and gruff, anthemic vocals. It feels like what might happen if they collaborated with Mark Ronson, and it can slot onto almost any party playlist. Then By Your Side, the song I hyperfixated on hardest in seventh grade, convinced it had been written specifically about my middle-school crush and that no one could possibly understand it but me and Jason Wade. The harmonies, the melody, the hook, the twinkle and chime of the guitar, I needed it IV’d into my veins. That song molded the romantic in me, and I mean that. In Your Skin closed the original album, and even after fifteen-plus years, it keeps growing on me with every listen.

Then the Deluxe opens up, and unlike a lot of bonus runs, this one earns its keep. All That I’m Asking For drifts in on a smoky, atmospheric interlude before the melodramatic piano starts pounding, all layered vocals and space building to a big finish under soaring strings. Crash and Burn rides driving bass and drums into a belting, emotive chorus, with fantastic drum fills threading the transitions. And then the payoff I’ve been waiting to talk about since the debut: Everything (Live in Studio). This is THE definitive version of Everything. The song has matured, and the band has mastered playing it from every angle, so the crescendo into the finale has never felt larger or more goosebump-inducing than it does here. You can watch the recording on YouTube, and the confidence is evident, visually and sonically both. It buries the original, exactly as promised.

The last two cuts show a band already glancing at its own future. Near Life Experience is one of the most slept-on tracks in the catalog, Lifehouse meets Bob Dylan, sung almost like spoken word with the storytelling front and center. And Don’t Wake Me When It’s Over is a stunner to end on, a snare-shuffle folk-leaning sleeper whose twang subtly points toward where the next record would go. It’s one of my favorites and one of their most underrated, full stop.

Smoke & Mirrors is the sound of Lifehouse at their most polished and their most confident, a record slick enough for the radio but far too curious to stay there. It flirts with R&B, dancefloor pop, arena rock, and folk without ever losing the thread, it hides some of its best songs in the back half and the bonus tracks, and it finally gives Everything the definitive recording it always deserved. I know I can’t be objective about this one. But I’ve spent fifteen years trying to find the seams in it and coming up short. This is the album that made me a lifer, and every time I go back, it makes the case all over again.

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Highlight Songs:

• Smoke & Mirrors

• By Your Side

• Everything (Live in Studio)

• Nerve Damage

• Don’t Wake Me When It’s Over

• Halfway Gone

• Wrecking Ball

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Own it, Stream it, Forget about it?

Own it, the Deluxe, no question. This is the record that turned me into a lifelong member of the pack, and it’s held up to fifteen years of me trying to wear it out. From the title track to the definitive Everything to a bonus run better than most bands’ A-sides, it’s a no-skip through and through. Buy it, then whisper sweet things to it.

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Overall Rating:

5 Stars