5 out of 5

Labels: Big Top Records

Produced by: Bob Weston

Woe to the dearth of Wicked Farleys material out there, and holy shit I never realized Bob Weston produced this.  I mean, Weston’s name is on a lot of stuff, but it’s always awesome when you find out that an album you’ve loved for years was also produced by a dude whose work you generally dig.  Like: good synchronicity, taste!

So the allmusic description of WF tells us that they play “collage rock,” which is all sorts of wanky but… maybe accurate, god dammit.  The quality The Wicked Farleys effect that I’ve never really been able to find in another band is the ability to be both the noisiest thing you’ve ever heard while also being soothing.  I feel like Red Sparowes always get dropped into that loud/pretty bucket, but, nah, that’s just a ton of distortion playing pretty notes.  Farleys are straight-up janked rawk – often discordant, often playing against and around typical song structure – while vocalist Michael Brodeur emotes his interesting world views in a delicate, almost frail croon…  Christina Files gave this a further wash of discordance on the group’s debut, forcing all the kitchen sink spasms WFs are doing in the background to the fore; Weston adds some range to it, allowing pop hooks to come out a bit more clearly, but also letting the album swim in the most delicious of reverb, giving a track like ‘Raise Dance’  this mysterious forgotten-tune sound.  Otherwise, perhaps it’s true to say that the Farleys’ overall approach hasn’t changed that much.  Thankfully, the sound is so unique (and so adaptable to any mood – with the pent up release of Find Shit Break Shit! or the glittery musings of Feathered) that there’s really no such thing as ‘repetitive’ for the group, and across two albums, an EP and some singles, there’s not a song I would ditch or that I get mixed up with another one.

With their sound punched up and sharpened by producer Bob Weston, ‘Make It It’ is a bit more accessible than the group’s previous release, ‘Sentinel and Enterprise.’  But: all of the power and greatness and flushness and beauty is still wholly intact, for forty minutes of a swan song release of “collage rock” that’s never been matched for its noise/beauty mash-up even to this day.