Various Artists: Tease Torment Tantalize: A 30th Anniversary Tribute to the Smiths’ Debut

So many albums have been marked as milestones over the years, but so many others have been overlooked in the process, many of them exceptional efforts that were either caught up in the sweep of history or simply seen as a product of their times. The Smiths’ eponymous debut falls into the latter category, an album tentatively noted when it was first released, but soon to be overshadowed by the other recordings the band would eventually offer. So while the passage of three decades has affirmed and enhanced the Smiths’ collective reputation, it’s still their music as a whole rather than any single album that affirms their iconic status.

With few exceptions, the Smiths’ music has never really been seen as ripe for interpretation. A sound that was inherently tied to Morrissey’s laconic croon and Johnny Marr’s assertive guitar, it strays well beyond the mainstream with its magnificent anguish. Literate to such a degree it was nearly impossible to typecast by pop music standards, it was also a style so singular that any attempt to recast it in any other context was immediately bound for failure. That’s clearly one reason for the lack of Smiths covers over the years. Truth be told, it would be a challenge to do these songs justice.

That’s not an exaggeration. At least not in the minds of Jim Sampas, George Sampas and David Greenburg, the creative minds behind Tease Torment Tantalize: A 30th Anniversary Tribute to the Smith’s Debut. Assembling a cast of mostly unfamiliar names, they’ve recreated the band’s first album song by song, rendering some surprisingly satisfying results.

Unlike most tributes that hit the streets these days, Tease Torment Tantalize dares to take liberties with the material, often veering sharply from Morrissey’s somber soliloquies while moving into other realms far removed from the Smiths’ gilded tomes. It’s an intriguing experiment at the very least, but given the imaginative treatments offered here, it’s also a new experience entirely.

While that might prove intimidating to some – for listeners, if not for the artists – the album starts out with an especially appealing opener, courtesy of Kevin Devine’s take on “Reel Around the Fountain”. The song seems to soar thanks to Devine’s delicate arrangement, offering hope that the remainder of the album will shear away the angst and emphasize setting a tone that might be more affable and appealing.

In truth, the emphasis is on experimentation, as in the shifting set-up of Field Mouse’s “Miserable Lie”, which finds a propulsive rhythm infused by noise and cacophony. The mellow drift of Our Broken Garden and their take on “I Don’t Owe You Anything” and the insistent drone of “Hand in Glove”, as interpreted by Faded Paper Figures, also stray from the predictable. But the overall effect is simply to show the diversity of a catalogue in ways that have rarely been explored before.

The words Tease, Torment and Tantalize have rarely been so well applied.