The World/Inferno Friendship Society – The Anarchy and the Ecstasy

In a just world, The World/Inferno Friendship Society would be selling out both cabaret theaters and punk venues worldwide – their particular merging of punk, calliope and gypsy-esque leanings have proven, over five albums, to be ridiculously fun. The songs themselves have an incredibly rich swagger that lend themselves perfectly to the extensive theatrics of their live show – they put on an incredibly energetic live performance, generally with nine or ten people on stage at once. Having seen them years ago but having little experience with their earlier works, I have no idea how The Anarchy Or The Ecstasyholds up. Regardless, as a relative newcomer to the band, it’s a hell of a ride.

Punk purists will most likely find very little to like here – the band clearly avoid more “standard” punk instrumentation and arrangements for brief flurries of lounge (“Thirteen Years Without Peter King”) and jazz (“Canonize Philip K. Dick, OK”), with structures heavily reliant on piano, organ, trumpet and trombone. Is’s about as far away from the Cro-Mags as you can get. Still, it’d probably be considered challenging to a lot of punks – if it wasn’t so fun to listen to.

The Anarchy And The Ecstasy is made up to ten songs of Jack Terricloth’s clear vocals layered over confident, raucous music that pays homage to musical histories as much as it emulates them. It’s still punk, but it’s punk filtered through a colander of jazz, folk, lounge and pop. It’s circus music. Fans of, say, Converge would most likely not be impressed, and arguably have little in common with The World/Inferno Friendship Society, but groups like Mischief Brew seem to have borrowed pretty heavily from them, sonically, topically and otherwise.

The downsides here, mostly, is the lack of lyrics – while the majority of lyrics are more than discernable, it’d be nice to have something physical to read along with. Still, that’s a pretty minor complaint. A solid record with a relentless underpinning of fun and joyousness.