WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY:
The Anarchy and the Ecstasy: CD
Only the most cynical person could say there aren’t many good bands active today, if one is willing to dig a bit. That said, though, it is still a rarefied air that surrounds a band one considers great. You know, the bands whose songs you want to be played during your wedding/ birthday/ funeral/ break up/ indie movie montage. World/Inferno has been on my honor roll ever since I first heard them, and this release cements that status. The “loose conspiracy” of members making up the punk rock cabaret orchestra has shifted since their last releases, losing such longtime members as guitarist Lucky Strano and mustachioed keyboard man Franz Nicolay, but the band holds solid around lead spiel man Jack Terricloth and bassist/vocalist Sandra Malak. There is not a dud among the songs here which carry on the band’s tradition of joyous hard-luck stories and vaudevillian politics. “Canonize Philip K. Dick, Ok” is one of the band’s finest songs and one of the catchiest indictments of disillusionment ever put to tape. The peak of the album, though, is “The Politics of Passing Out,” which is my favorite song this year and one of the few that would make it onto my personal list of absolutely perfect songs. From the slow-build start, to the simultaneously heartbroken and joyous lyrical imagery, and the rising vocal duet at the end, this song alone would justify the existence of this band and makes this album a worthy purchase. –Adrian Salas (Chunksaah)