The World/Inferno Friendship Society is one band that might actually be worthy of being called a "society." Consisting of 13 members, recruited from a dream list of "everyone who you never thought would make an album together" (the most peculiar listings from their resume include former members of Blues Traveler, Dexy's Midnight Runners and the NFL's Atlanta Falcons' Half Time Marching Band), the World/Inferno Friendship Society plays every instrument known to man, and has dabbled in every musical genre you could name on a bet. Now this Music Theory class on wheels graces us with East Coast Super Sound Punk of Today, a collection of eight songs that, running at just about 30 minutes in length, is too damn out there to be everyday pop, rock, ska, dance, or salsa (even though it sounds like all these), but is too damned goofy to qualify as serious prog-rock.

If ever the term "musical clusterfuck" could be assigned to a single album, this is the one. Evident from the band's tongue-twister name and string-of-adjectives album title, this is music all about excess. This is big music, circus music, carnival music, marching band music. This music is glitzy, wears emerald pinky rings, and always goes for the biggest bang for the buck. Musical styles crunch head-long into one another like crashing Mack trucks. Immense drum beats thunder over everything. These people incorporate every instrument, rhythm and sound they can borrow from an encyclopedia's worth of musical genres. Take the African free-standing bass, Grandma's washboard, a drum machine, and the chorus of electric trumpets, and throw them all into the gumbo pot. Mix until you end up with shamelessly bloated songs, and you have the party on wax that is East Coast Super Sound Punk of Today. Of course, bands with 13 musicians aren't usually known for their subtlety.

Being eclectic and all that is fine, but in all honestly, these guys come off like they don't actually know what they're doing half the time. I mean that in a good way, though. The theory behind this album seems to be, "If we get enough cooks into the kitchen, we're bound to come up with a three-course meal eventually." Naturally, the album-buying public knows this is the same bullshit logic that creates sub-standard, all-star crap like lame benefit albums, boring movie soundtracks and laughable super-groups. Not so this time. Maybe it's their diminished egos or their complete and total lack of public notoriety, but the members of the World/Inferno Friendship Society know exactly where they work best in the band, and they actually stay there. So, the band may be a large team, but at least they're all running the same play at the same time. Maintaining the musical variety that any multi-genre group needs, they also have a tightness and focus that other ensembles rarely come close to achieving.

With all the bombast and sonic gluttony in progress here, it's no surprise that there's a sense of fun to this record. These songs are often silly, and they're meant to be that way. An album this cluttered wouldn't work if it didn't have a sense of humor to it. Still, the band's definition of "humorous" isn't rubber chickens and "Three Stooges" eye-gouging. "Our Candidate," a rousing campaign fanfare number, is a strange little song about electing Dante Alighieri to the office of President of the United States. Yes, that Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet, born in Florence in 1265, who was most famous for his terrifying epic about one man's trip through hell, "The Inferno." In case you're wondering, he's elected on a platform of promising to rain down bloody, hellish vengeance on the wicked.

As playful as the album's lyrics get sometimes, the musicianship is dead serious-- these guys are careful to stay true to every musical style they incorporate. Ska-influenced tracks like "Glamour Ghouls" have more honest ska-funk in their pinky fingers than any flaccid, Top 40 radio ska group turned out in all of 1997. And, surprisingly, for all the genres they plow through, the songwriting is top-notch, if a little schizophrenic. One second, the band channels Celtic rhythms that make you want to drink Guinness and worship trees with your Druid brethren ("Tattoos Fade"). Then, they churn out a gospel song about Linus' devotion to the Great Pumpkin ("Pumpkin Time"). After that, they recreate the sterile, artificial blips and whistles of early '80s, Taco-era synth-pop for a song about how shitty California is ("All of California and Everyone Who Lives There Stinks").

Saying this album is "confused" is like saying a whale is "one big fucking fish." But, in this case, the confusion works to make the album a jumpy, frantic piece of musical fun. These guys have talent, and whether they're playing serious blues or just playing around, it shows. Talent plus this kind of unchecked creativity can only lead to good things, even if those good things are weird as shit.

-Steven Byrd