Screeching Weasel – Baby Fat Act.1 – Review

“Baby Fat – Act 1” is Screeching Weasel’s new album, released on the 30th of June for the Recess Records. The Chicago punk rock band went back in studio after four years and they made it thanks to a crowdfunding opera that yielded Ben Weasel & Co an impressive forty thousands dollars.
The final work is an album of 27 pieces divided into three acts, overtly inspired to the theatrical opera “Rigoletto”, and it tells the story of Baby Fat and Swank. The choice to adopt this unusual structural paradigm, totally unreleated to the scene, could make fans of the band, active for thirty years, turn up their nose. Baby Fat is absolutely not a normal album. In fact, the listening opens with “Il tremendo fantasma”, an instrumental piece that recalls Morricone’s sound, which has little in common with the SW. Even the other “scene” introductions follow this spaghetti western theme.
In full pop-punk style, that reconciles itself with the furious atmospheres that the band has accustomed us to, we find “Kewpie Doll” and “Poveretta”, by far the best tracks of the album along with “Creeping in Silence”, “All Winter Long” and “Without Belief”.
It’s important to notice the numerous collaborations in this album: Blag Dahlia from the Dwarves (main character of the story, Baby Fat), Roger Lima from Less Than Jake, Kat Spazzy from the Spazzys (female voice that adds a plus to all the pieces in which it appears), Paul Collins, Andrea and Mass from the Manges, Todd Congelliere from Toys That Kill etc.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t miss out on reckless horrors such as: “Disharmony 1”, which sounds very heavy. In the end, “Baby Fat – Act 1” is a particular album, different, that has nothing to compare to Screeching Weasel’s best works. This said, it deserves at least a listen without prejudices.

ALBUM RATING: 6,5

Reviewed by T.D.
Translated by L.A. and J.L.