I’ve seen this band three or four times live at this point, so it’s nice to finally have something to listen to outside of the confines of an eastside club. The band—with its ten or so members, the Three Penny Opera-tics of the lead singer with girl group-like backing vocals, and unrock-like instrumentation of saxophone, glockenspiel, violin—strikes me as the West Coast World/Inferno Society. There isn’t an exact one-to-one comparison between the two, as Jail Weddings tunes down the punk and cabaret influence of World Inferno and instead amps up the ‘60s soul and garage. Epic garage symphonies would actually be a very apt description of what’s going on here. When it takes off like on “One of These Days,” “What Did You Do With My Gun?,” and the charmingly rad duet “When We’re Together,” the album really hits some positive highs and more than justifies its existence.
–Adrian (White Noise)