The World/Inferno Friendship Society is a band hailing from Brooklyn, New York. It is difficult to place them into a specific genre, due to the sheer mixture of sounds the band likes to include in their music. An apt surface level description could be to say they are anarcho-circus cabaret punk, but that label alone is both covering a large amount of ground, and missing the influences of soul, klezmer, jazz, and bluegrass in their music.

The band itself is more of a collective than an actual band, as its member count currently sits at around 40, with a standard lineup per album or performance of 7 to 9 performers, led by frontman and band founder Jack Terricloth. Members come and go to various reasons, but bring with them many different instruments, ranging from horns, to violins and cellos, to even an accordion at one point in the band’s life, in addition to the standard punk fare of guitar, bass guitar and drummer.

In performance, the band itself is almost always dressed up in suits and other high end dress clothes, giving a certain air to their performances and defying the stereotypical punk look, in addition to their instrument choices.