On its own merits, The Anarchy And The Ecstasy is a good WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY record. It’s more jaunty than I was expecting. Here’s why I was expecting anything from WORLD/INFERNO: There was an eight song mastered record called 3 Ring Brain And A Circus Heart that got leaked in 2010, which I listened to non-stop.

It sounded a lot more traditionally WORLD/INFERNO. There was a song called “Anti-Fascist Cabaret”, “Ladies And Gentlemen Of The Road” (which I remember being a lot more thrash influenced when I saw it live in 2009) and four songs that would end up on The Anarchy And The Ecstasy, in slightly altered forms that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

The Anarchy And The Ecstasy of course, hit my blind spot: They merely deemphasized the electric guitar in the songs and let other instruments into the cool bits with the melody. It took me a while to get it, but now that I think about it, The Anarchy And The Ecstasy comes into focus. More weight is put on the shoulders of the horns and the keyboards and the players run with it, coiling around each other.

I think of The Anarchy And The Ecstasy as more obviously melodramatic than W/IFS’ last two discs. Addicted To Bad Ideas was certainly dramatic, but there was the veil of the retelling of the life of Peter Lorre. The Anarchy And The Ecstasy entertains no such pretense. “Thirteen Years Without Peter King” is a song about a friend, who I assume committed suicide, “The Apple Was Eve”, an excellent song, but bewildering, as the lyrics about “who kissed the mother of tears”, thirty nine steps and arriving at an enemy’s grave pass by, the first chorus vocalized by one of the women in the band, the second by Jack (vocalist) and the third by them both. Huh. I played the song again and again because I enjoy it, but man, it’s a curveball from a band known for throwing curveballs.

(Forgive my baseball metaphors. Go Cubs.)

That said, there’s no immediately standout track, like “Brother Of the Mayor of Bridgewater” or “Thumb Cinema.” It might be a step back, actually. The Anarchy And The Ecstasy doesn’t have Addicted To Bad Ideas thematic clarity or as many immediately catchy songs as Red-Eyed Soul. “I Am Sick Of People Being Sick Of My Shit” or “Canonize Phillip K. Dick, OK?” are both more traditional W/IFS ornamentation, but they’re not the ones I go back to on the disc. I end up going back to “The Mighty Raritan”, “The Politics of Passing Out” (both re-recorded) and “The Apple Was Eve”.

Speaking of “The Mighty Raritan”, it closes the record in a surprisingly straightforward fashion (Jack’s voice, piano, maraca, an acoustic guitar, Yula backups) and traces a young life on the river (I assume Jack’s), “listening to the adults cursing, laughing and thinking,” stealing a rowboat and making friends with the trains crashing through his childhood New Brunswick neighborhood. “Heart Attack ’64″ and “So Long To the Circus” closed out the previous records, each of which their specific veiling metaphor, but the “Mighty Raritan” is comparatively naked.

What I’m getting at is this: THE WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY wrote a record that I enjoy, but resists, strongly, first or second listens and comparisons to their previous work, which at this point, should stop surprising me. It doesn’t, and maybe that’s the best compliment I can give the disk: It’s a new WORLD/INFERNO record, whomever and whatever that happens to be at the very day the guy in the booth hits the record button.

Chunksaah