Sam Jayne started Love as Laughter in 1994 as a solo project in the months after the dissolution of Olympia, Washington's mess-rock legends Lync and his work with Beck on the One Foot in the Grave record.

L/A/L went on to release two albums on K Records and two more on Sub Pop. Recorded over a five-month period in a friend's Delaware basement, with Zeke Howard, Brandon Angle and Miguel Mendez (of Dios), Laughter's Fifth marks the band's return to home-based production.

And, the record highlights Jayne's tongue-in-cheek wit, manifesting itself in the form of sly musical allusions and lyrical innuendo.

Laughter's Fifth is full of the kind of loosely perfect pop songwriting that inspired Doug Martsch to cover "Singing Sores Make Perfect Swords" (off L/A/L's first album, The Greks Bring Gifts) on Built to Spill's live record, simply titled Live.

It's a record shot through with gritty, intimate, laissez-faire sentiment and soul, and also their fifth full-length release.