The band showed unusual technical ability right from its inception, and was known for the buzzing speed guitar attack of Dug Bevans and arching vocal style of lead singer Mike Caldwell, whose wide vocal range is well showcased in the band's cover of Natural Woman as it appeared on their last release, My Dear Little Angle.
In spite of this label, every album featured a straight jazz number or faithful covers of rock standards such as Middle of the Road (Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde) and songs featuring a variety of styles including country, swing and salsa style jazz breaks, that were embedded in the band's signature hard rock/metal sound.
In western Canada the Smalls' high energy shows made the band a touring success and could be counted on to fill large halls when headlining at venues such as Vancouver's legendary Commodore Ballroom, but were also known for extensive touring in outlying areas—In Kamloops, British Columbia they were banned from performing after a riot that took place after a promoter severely overfilled a small venue and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police attempted to clear the hall.
With their third album Waste and Tragedy (1995) the band moved to a new producer, Joel van Dyke (Wide Mouth Mason, Colin James[6]) and a much cleaner sound.
Boyd had been successful in capitalizing on the expanding "indie rock" music scene including becoming the first distributor for many Sub Pop artists and the Epitaph Records label in Canada.
Shortly thereafter Boyd sold Cargo Records Canada to Alan Fox a successful entrepreneur with no music industry experience.
Despite ongoing problems with Cargo Records the band secured distribution in Europe and embarked on its first European tour during this period, scenes from which can be found in the documentary called The Smalls... Er Whatever, directed by John Stiles and edited by Ian Harvey.
Dug Bevans is engaged in Edmonton area projects such as producing and playing on Steve Hobbins recording the Wizard of Words.
It was also announced that The Smalls were to take part in Calgary's annual X-Fest in August 2014 (along with other artists such as Jack White, Arctic Monkeys, Death Cab for Cutie, Foster the People, Cage the Elephant, etc.