At the time of Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (and, to a lesser extent, New York Tendaberry), Nyro imbued her songs with an arrestingly authentic hysteria, a wrenching freneticism that never felt forced. Reveling in a murky feminine eroticism, agonizing over her dependence upon men, struggling with religious convictions and concomitant fears, she could illuminate her wildly energetic melody lines and impressionistic lyrics with a lunatic lucidity, composing from a vantage point right on the edge….

[Smile] shows her to be understandably unwilling to live out on the border any longer, not even for the sake of her art…. Nyro is intent on protecting whatever new peace of mind she may have found, and she's both famous and talented enough to get away with it. Perhaps in part because it's been several years in the making, Smile is a diffuse album, one that attempts to substitute an air...