The fresh emergence of Orlando band Danny Feedback and the Franchise both is and isn’t what it seems. And that won’t be the only thing about this that will turn you upside-down.
First, what they’re not: Danny Feedback and the Franchise are not an entirely new supergroup merging two of Orlando’s most outlandish bands. In reality, it’s a rebranding of experimental local band Franchise (of which Danny Feedback has always been a member) to further distinguish them from others of the same name.
Still, this latest rise is a dramatic development on multiple levels. They’re dropping a new album this Saturday, March 11. Hoary Animals will be Franchise’s first release in over a decade, and it prominently showcases the distance and directions of the members’ evolution in that considerable span. While the 12 new songs are both “psychedelic” and “rock,” the work of these career weirdos is far outside any traditional notions of “psych rock.” In fact, this record is much less rock than usual. With a more electronic foundation and none of the noisy freakouts of before, Franchise are definitely on different drugs now.
Right from the jump, the melted guitar notes in opening track “We’re OK” signal a departure from not just Franchise’s past but from tethers of reality and even sanity. Things only get more bent from there on in, each song a deeper, more warped step inside. In turns swirling, floating and plodding, Hoary Animals is a disembodied acid vacation that cycles through all strata of high. Most noteworthy, though, is that Franchise are still finding new orbits.
Hoary Animals will stream everywhere on March 11. To celebrate, Danny Feedback and the Franchise will do a big release show that very night with grunge rockers Trash Cinema and industrial shredders TTN (8 p.m. Saturday, March 11, Will’s Pub, $10).
This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2023.
