Rett Smith is a singer-songwriter and a guitarist that combines indie rock with indie folk and shades of Americana to create songs with a dark, gothic tone melodically and lyrically. His songs often evoke a feeling between unease and menace in a way that a young and far less intense Nick Cave would produce on one of his more cheerful days. When he turns up the rock (see "Billy Wayne Reed"), his electric guitar sears right through with the same level of darkness. He can bring up varying degrees of tension on his acoustic pieces, as he sings like a man who has been beaten down many times before and expects more of where that came from. There is a sense of grit in his songs, which, by the way, are well-written and quite captivating. His 2023 album A Nightly Consequence amps up the darkness, bringing his music ever closer to a goth-like territory at times, though he still retains his roots style.
