Has Sam Jayne been sitting the rock revival out? The erstwhile Lync frontman
was last heard of with his ongoing/ever-changing Love As Laughter outfit in September
2001, when L/A/L dished up Sea to Shining Sea, possibly the best distillation
of the riff they'd committed to disc, with Jayne uncorking some straight-up classic
licks on the disc's black-brushed, brashly fuzzy opening fire-up "Coast to Coast," and
then slinking through some dark-blue blues on a laggard gait called, hilariously, "Sam
Jayne = Dead." Coming mere weeks after The Strokes had stroked that iconic ass
with a leather glove, turning the pop-cultural paradigm on its ear with their
beat-up beat-combo references-to-record-collections, it should've followed on
that Love As Laughter — with all those ripped-off rock riffs of their own — suddenly
went from fondly-thought-of obscurity to slandered success-story. For whatever
reason (maybe the fact that they weren't called The Laughter?), Jayne remained
ensconced in the obscurity that he's long known; and, well, then, he just disappeared.
Between 1994 and 2001, Jayne had dished up six discs between Lync and L/A/L,
becoming some sort of Sub Pop staple in the process. And, then, there was naught
but eerie silence. Over three and a half years on, Jayne has finally returned,
and Laughter's Fifth seems to confirm the concept he's been deliberately
avoiding recording whilst the whole rock-revivalist hype-machine chugged away.
As a Seattleite cutting his teeth in the early '90s, Jayne saw grunge rock the
first time around, and likely couldn't stomach the stench of the whole haircut
movement and its crossover do-over. He's only, finally, coming up for air now,
but, doing so in a less guitar-slinging way than he did on either of the last
two L/A/L longplayers (Sea to Shining Sea and, prior, Destination 2000).
With its "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" cover-art and a cover of the West Coast
Pop Art Experimental Band, Laughter's Fifth finds Jayne tracking back
to a groovier, sillier time in rock 'n' roll, peeling back the rough riffs and
celebrating the peace-and-love beat. Cuts like "Canal Street" are built on a
pushed-forth bassline and backbeat, stacking on dollops of analog organ, handclaps
and a California-vocal-group chorus, and leaving Jayne's guitar to deliver but
spindly, single-note lead-breaks. And, aside from how "Every Midnight Song" ups
the bluster midway through, amping up the tempo and bleeding walls of guitars
well into the (bloodied) red, this is the way it goes on this disc, favoring
paisley over denim. And, in such, the distance between Jayne's rock 'n' roll
spirit and the recent pathetic pantomimes of the rock 'n' roll spirit seems greater
(and, like, greater) than ever.
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