Smith & Cohen

Half Life is the sound of Smith & Cohen coming home to themselves - a record written for the middle years, where longing and contentment sit side by side, and small moments carry the weight of memory. Across eleven songs, Karl Smith and Pete Cohen (who formerly went by the name Sodastream) trace the shape of modern life: friendship, parenthood, heartbreak, hope, and the slow work of making peace with where you’ve landed. Most of the album was performed entirely by Smith and Cohen and the result is intimate and unmistakably theirs: pulsing double bass, textured acoustic guitar, analogue haze, and a ghostly bowed bass that winds its way in and out of songs throughout. On drums and in the producer’s chair, long-time collaborator Marty Brown brings his deft, unhurried touch to the arrangements, accentuating the dynamics but always letting the songs speak for themselves.

The exception is ‘Fields of green’, a bittersweet duet featuring The Orbweavers, where Marita Dyson’s voice links up with Smith’s for an aching chorus, highlighted by Stuart Flanagan’s incandescent electric guitar. The guest spot feels natural: a nod to friendship and the interconnectedness that underpins so much of the record. Lyrically, Half Life speaks to the everyday mess and quiet transcendence of adulthood, midweek regrets, suburban heartbreak, and the moments of grace in between. There’s melancholy here, but also resilience and flashes of joy. For Smith & Cohen, Half Life is both a reckoning and a renewal: a new chapter for a new time. It’s an album that acknowledges what’s passed, but insists there’s still much to hope for.

smithandcohen777@gmail.com