LA-based Frankie and the Witch Fingers comprise Dylan Sizemore and Josh Menashe on vocals and guitars, Glen Brigman driving the beats, and, introducing Nikki (Death Valley Girls) Pickle on bass after the departure of foundation member Alex Bulli who had made his mark on this record before leaving.
The new collective is proud to present their sixth full-length release since their lo-fi adventures on “Sidewalk” back in September 2013. Their eponymous second release in 2014/2015 from which “Lou Reed” was lifted in February 2015; the echodelic Syd Barrett-via-Robyn Hitchcock “Heavy Roller” from July 2016; the neo-Beatles surfer “Brain Telephone” from February 2018; and last year’s “Zam”. Their recent tour with ZZ Top and Cheap Trick seem to have rubbed off on them with this collection of self-proclaimed “sci-fi landscapes and fantastical netherworlds” but unfortunately cost them their founding bassist.
Activate opens with a Star Trek/Floyd Vincent-inspired bongo solo, bursting into an 8’00” straight-ahead rock piece that rivals Emerson Lake & Palmer’s 1977 Fanfare. It could also be a musical theatre overture, taking almost 2min to get to the vocals; and the 1’00” fade merged seamlessly into track 2. I hear it as a sports-programme opening theme, much as Muse was played during the 2014 Winter Olympics, but more for your Wide World Of Sports Sunday morning fare.
Activate is also one of two singles from this record that comes with an official video. From an embryo, to a FNAF animatronic-cum-ceremonial Chinese dragon, to an effect as per the second movement of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody back In 1975, but trippier, more colourful and kaleidoscopic, like Max Headroom 6-8 years later.
Experiencing Internet issues does not lend itself to full enjoyment of the flow of a record but living in Australia with the world’s 64th-best Internet infrastructure makes one used to this sort of thing. Once it was resolved I experienced Reaper: a slower-paced Pink Floyd Dark-Sidesque slow-paced 70s blues/pedal-effected rock number that leaps around the room throwing devils horns in the air as soon as chilling to the slower beats.
Sweet Freak retains rockin’ 70s-influences in a pacier, proggy, Blue Öyster Cult style with heaps of wah through the chorus. Where’s Your Reality? flows on, as all the other tracks have so far, and maintains the rockin’ rage with a tilt at Kansas and Skynyrd’s Free Bird toward the end. So far, the promised psychadelia hasn’t been delivered but that’s OK- I prefer my 70s rock straight-ahead with the occasional cowbell, clean or fuzzy wah, time-signature change-up, and insertion of recording effect.
Sweet Freak the other single from this record… unfortunately my link to this video didn’t work so I have to wait for its release like everyone else.
Having said that about the psychedelia, Michaeldose delivers in a short sharp interlude, followed by a shorter, sharper, maybe even more psychedelic Can You Here Me Now. Just as I was talking typos this morning, and from my review of “Your So Beautiful” in another lifetime, this triggered all my grammar-fascism BUT I also appreciate why it was done like this, and moved quickly from it.
Simulator returns with the lengthy prog we left with Reaper and Freak with vocal and guitar scenes of Spiderbait on Pony that segued into the Soup Dragons’ cover of I’m Free from back in 1990 in the first of three middle-8s.
Urge You is probably a plea from the band to get into this record any way you can, helped along with some trippy Death on Two Legs / Lotta Love / Fool’s Gold / BBC Radio-static a la the end of All You Need Is Love, while Cavehead returns with the lo-fi guitar-driven overdrive with string-bending choruses and pounding beats, and MEPEM, which is the title-track acronym, closes as we opened with an 8’00” wah-fuelled opus and a Floyd Vincent-inspired chord progression chorus (I really have to find who Floyd’s inspiration was, unless his “Dolphins of Bagdad” album was bigger than I give it credit for!)
Fans of any of the bands mentioned here will enjoy FATWF’s “MEPEM” on Reverberation Appreciation Society / Greenway Records. Whilst the sounds and styles are deeply entrenched in those heady days of extended instrumental breaks, analogue guitar effects, and cohesive bass and drum pairings, the production values on this record are just as at home in the digital age of the third decade of the third millennium. Long live rock ‘n’ roll. Long live Franky and the Witch Fingers!