45ACIDBABIES, Don’t 4Get To Smile
Independent
45ACIDBABIES’s sound is always a dizzying blast of buzz in technicolour, but Don’t 4get To Smile takes it a step darker. Stripped back moments, moody melody lines and screeching synths combine hypnotically in a critique of Instagram-era, image-focused consciousness that’s so spot on it’s terrifying. They’re masters of telling a story through their sound and creating an immersive world to set the story in – recent cuts Mommy’s Favorite 1 and Only Class6 From Now On were comic-book-bright brilliance. Don’t 4get To Smile takes the otherworldly, and makes it almost too real.
The mantra of “everything is fine” holds the ricocheting instrumentals down as the chorus kicks in, ironic, deadpan and absolutely on-the-nose. The synths are club-ready, karate-kicking along the beat in a way that’s somehow futuristic and retro – the track is impossible to place in time. Is it an 80s exercise tape, inviting you into a never-not-smiling dream world, or are those whispered verses part of the Billie Eilish-style, expectation-obliterating present? Don’t 4Get To Smile is everywhere.
45ACIDBABIES always adopt a powerful persona to convey the point of each track, and the insistence of Don’t 4get To Smile couldn’t hit on the pressures of social performance better. Everything Is Fine! is drilled in with sugary sweetness, but the darker undercurrents cut through to make sure we’re disconcerted by this toxic positivity – it’s layered, it’s bold, and it’s weird, and it’s totally 45ACIDBABIES.
Don’t 4Get To Smile is out today!
