We’ve got the exclusive premiere of “Don’t Smile”, the new single from Los Angeles’ own LA Font. “Don’t Smile” might be a hard direction to follow when it comes to LA Font as they’ve performed with a number of titans of alt comedy, such as Marc Maron, Kyle Kinane, Maria Bamford, Hannibal Buress, and Reggie Watts, and they’ve also had their tunes used as theme songs for comedy podcasts from Vice and Nerdist. When it comes to “Don’t Smile” in particular, though, the track may not be chock full of punchlines, but it is packed with enough strummy pop sunshine to make you smile nevertheless.
The track opens with shades of the Velvet Underground and Cornershop as bubbling percussion rattles over jangly, clean electric guitar chords. Once the emotive, charming vocals of Danny Bobbe come in, the song’s hook will have you hooked along with Bobbe’s catchy pronunciation of “monkey” and “invisible” (something that’s been a pleasure to have stuck in my head since giving the tune a listen). From there, the percussion slyly layers itself up and down with a number of interesting sounds that give the track a great depth of pop grandeur. That, coupled with the understated, but on-point bass and loose, confident guitar solo all combine for three minutes of pop euphoria.
“Don’t Smile” is the first single off of LA Font’s upcoming EP Swish 2 which is set to drop September 16 on New Professor Records and is available for pre-order now.
