The World/Inferno Friendship Society – This Packed Funeral

Brooklyn, New York-based troupe of music makers The World/Inferno Friendship Society, led by the one and only Jack Terricloth, have come together yet again to record a brand spanking new album of revelry and revolution, combining sound and word in a way that only they can. Titled This Packed Funeral, this eleven-song offering is the collective’s follow-up to The Anarchy and the Ecstasy in 2011. Rather than release the album on Chunksaah as they did their last two albums, The World/Inferno Friendship Society switched labels, opting to work with Alternative Tentacles for This Packed Funeral.

This Packed Funeral  is just as broadly eclectic and artistically adventurous as the World/Inferno Friendship Society albums which came before it, lighting the new songs afire with instrument and voice and letting them burn burn burn, engulfing everything in their vicinity in incendiary punk cabaret, anarcho jazz, gypsy-core, strange energetic folk, and fringe soul, among other styles. This collection of songs is at once a strong martini and a molotov cocktail, a stylish suit and a tattered punk t-shirt, a wickedly grinning menace and a stunningly beautiful face, a whisper and a scream, a middle finger and a kiss on the cheek.

As with most World/Inferno Friendship Society albums, it borders on impossible to choose the release’s standout tracks. This Packed Funeral opens strong with “Dolce Far Niente” (see the video for this song attached to this review). Other favorites include “Don’t Kiss Me, I’m Running Out of Lipstick,” “Taken Down a Peg I Help Out the Squatters in the Subway,” “Don’t Get Me Started, Don’t Get Me Wrong,” and the title track “This Packed Funeral.”

This video is a full live show from annual World/Inferno Friendship Society event Hallowmas in New York City.

World/Inferno Friendship Society’s This Packed Funeral is scheduled for a November 11, 2014 release from Alternative Tentacles. The album is available in both CD and LP formats at the label’s webstore.

For fans of: Devotchka, Mischief Brew, The Dead Brothers, Gogol Bordello, Mama Rosin, The Pussywarmers, Peter Murphy’s Carver Combo.