Recommended tracks: “Spring summer,” “Its here”
Artists you may like: Oklou, Pearly Drops, Planet 1999
Named after the closing track of their critically acclaimed LP Big City Life featuring the viral “You got time and I got money”, Smerz’s Easy sounds more like an anniversary b-side than a new artistic endeavor.
With a run time of roughly 10 minutes, Easy is a half-beats, half-fillers record that lacks the thematic complexity of its predecessor. While it’s another sonically cohesive project from the Norwegian alt duo, I think it may have hit harder as a dual single release with just “Spring summer” and “Its here” (and maybe “The room you described”) since the others build, blend, and vanish into these songs anyway.
Written, produced, and engineered entirely by Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt, Easy captures Smerz’s signature soundscape right from the first instrumental “Somewhere” with only a few keyboard notes: dreamy, airy, and almost otherworldly. It transitions into the much heavier synths of “Spring summer,” a track about temptation and restraint, finding and losing, knowing and pretending (“Shouldn’t you be somewhere? / I couldn’t find you anywhere / So I asked you why you tried to hide / Like you’re on someone’s list”). It exudes this strange, eerie feeling of late spring/early summer when you are so ready for the chaos yet scared to let go of the peace.
“Its here” features a much more stripped-down beat to highlight the duo’s vocal production. This sonic choice almost mirrors the songwriting: “I’m closing down as a test / I’m closing down to imagine / I feel a room in my chest / I’ve never been imagined.” Both “Spring summer 3 beat” and “Somewhere 2,” as the titles suggest, are mere follow-up interludes to their referenced tracks, which could have been put together to create more fulfilling full-length productions.
“The room you described” literally closes the record: “Listen to me, I don’t really mind / Close my eyes, I’m in that room you describe,” Psychedelically synthy and lyrically sensual, Easy is a sonic fever dream. Open your eyes and its illusion will hit you with reality.
Smerz just supported Lorde on her Ultrasound Tour this week in LA and will hit the road with Robyn for her Sexistential tour in Glasgow (June 26), Brussels (June 30), and Stockholm (July 18). The duo is also in the middle of their Spring summer tour 2026 from until September 17 across Europe and North America. Grab your tickets here.
Keep up with Smerz: Spotify // Bandcamp // YouTube // Instagram
