Frankie and The Witch Fingers Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters is a psychedelic garage rock album with electric energy coursing through its veins. The fuzzy guitars, reverberating vocals and up tempo rhythms are skillfully executed with punk rock drive. It is no wonder that this album debuted on the billboard top 100. This album the band takes their sound into experimental territories giving it a stronger psychedelic edge than their previous albums.
Frankie and The Witch Fingers Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters released on October 2nd 2020 on Reverberation Appreciation Society and Greenway Records with several colors of vinyl CD and download.
The band has drawn fresh blood on this new album while keeping the powerful link to their past and the history of psychedelic garage rock. This album has vintage vibes drawing much of their sound from garage rock and old school rock and roll but these influences are seamlessly integrated into contemporary raw neo-psychedelic rock and kraut rock.
Monsters Eating People gets the heart pumping and the feet moving much like their captivating live performances. The tight starts and stops and exciting transitions translate well to record and cause involuntary awkward dance moves from all who listen. The band’s introduction of synthesizers, horns, and other instrumentation add to the depth of the music and allow for explorations into new directions. The rock oriented songs smoothly slip into progressive jams that bring new dynamics to their music. They get experiential with glitching synth and guitars melting into rainbow effects.
Frankie and The Witch Fingers formed in Bloomington, Indiana before moving to Los Angelas California. They released the debut album Sidewalk in 2013 on Chicago label Permanent Records. They later signed to the psychedelic and garage rock label Greenway Records. Their break out fifth album ZAM released in 2019 on Greenway Records had propelled them to open for ZZ Top and Cheap Trick. Their love for vintage music ranging from CAN and R&B to Miles Davis but the music is heavily influenced by 13th Floor Elevators and psychedelic rock. All of the albums have displayed upbeat raw rock music that has an unrelenting charge.
The band’s primary songwriters are singer and guitarist Dylan Sizemore and guitarist synth player Josh Menashe. They have a steady drummer in Shughnessy Starr who joined the band in 2018. After extensive touring of 2018 and 2019 the band lost its long time bass player Alex Bulli. This gap created and opportunity for Sizemore and Menashe to compose and record some of the bass parts. Stripped down to its essential pieces during the creation of this album the band created a raw psychedelic sound. Later in the process they brought on Death Valley Girls bassist Nikki Pickle helping to complete the album and for live performances streamed and on the road.
The album’s lyrics slap back with vintage compressed glory. Sizemore has a percussive singing style that is melodic and punchy with layers of reverb. Many of the lyrics feel like notes from a psychedelic therapy journal. For example,“Are you freaking out? I am freaking too, Maybe you should lie down; you should.”
A related theme emerges on “Simulator” Dylan Sizemore sings, “Wake up your simulator, wake up and override, wake up your human nature” and on “Let Me Urge You” the lyrics read, “Let me urge you to go deeper. Deeper into what you are. Let me Urge you to go deeper, it will take you far.”
Monsters Eating People Eating is a powerful album with everything a garage and psychedelic rock enthusiast could ever want including fuzzy guitars, charged riffs, experimental jams and interesting vocals and lyrics. There are few faults in the album it has great production, mix and mastering. The album artwork is extraordinary and with the vinyl options available the total package looks like melting psychedelic visions that are black light reactive. This is the strongest album to date from this band and is very highly recommended.
frankieandthewitchfingers.com/
