Bret McKenzie – ‘Freak Out City’ album review: Wonderful songwriting, and that’s no joke
It’s not unusual for comedy artists to turn their eyes towards becoming serious musicians, abandoning all humorous aspects of the work they’re best known for in order to slightly lift the veil on their real identities.
Quite often, a firm line tends to get drawn between the two disparate creative outlets; for example, the Matt Berry who has released multiple albums of jazz-rock would rather you didn’t compare his work to ‘One Track Lover’ from Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, and Tim Heidecker’s folk records are so far removed from ‘I Want To Ride on a Choo-Choo Train’ that it’s hard to believe that they’re the same person.
When Bret McKenzie, best known for his work as part of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, released his debut solo album, Songs Without Jokes, in 2022, you might be forgiven for thinking that this was another comedian venturing into the world of making music in a far more earnest fashion. However, the resulting album still had a touch of his deadpan sense of humour to it, and on his follow-up, Freak Out City, things aren’t exactly funny, but they certainly are fun.
When the tables are turned, artists like Randy Newman, Father John Misty and Ben Folds have all managed to make sophisticated records that incorporate humour, satire and irony, yet they’re never dismissed as being comedic for the sake of doing so. Given that Freak Out City bears resemblance to all of the above in its approach, McKenzie has clearly managed to navigate the fine line between using humour as a subtle vehicle to tell stories and outright gunning for laughs.
There’s a small wink that McKenzie appears to be doing to his audience on this record, one that confirms to the listeners that his references to the likes of Harry Nilsson and John Prine (who he covers on the record) are deliberate, but because he’s got more than enough history of mimicking other artists in his prior work, there’s never any danger of his impressions falling flat.
The difference is that this isn’t parodic, unlike when he and former comedic partner Jemaine Clement are accurately delivering a pastiche of the Black Eyed Peas. While they may well have genuinely adored ‘My Humps’, these songs are instead done with a more obvious appreciation for the sources of inspiration, even if they do occasionally sound a little too derivative of them.
The only other thing that drags the record down is that it doesn’t showcase his versatility quite as much as Flight of the Conchords did, and while it might be a little disarming to hear him go from a Prince impression to a Pet Shop Boys impression on the next, the fact that anyone with knowledge of his prior work knows he can deliver both of these equally well makes it somewhat disappointing to hear a record where he predominently stays in one lane.
That being said, if you’re happy to forget that this is the same man who conceived ‘Foux De Fa Fa’ and wrote the Academy Award-winning ‘Man Or Muppet’, then why should the fact that this is largely removed from his other work be an issue? McKenzie’s talents are self-evident throughout Freak Out City, and for all of the moments where it feels a little too indebted to its influences, there are more than enough that showcase why he deserves to be taken seriously in his own right.
Defining track – ‘Eyes on the Sun’: McKenzie’s flair for melody is all over this album, but there’s no track that really showcases just how brilliantly he can do the basics and then throw in an unexpected descending chord sequence like the chorus of this one. Musing on the threats of global warming, it mixes his own personal anxieties with an ironically sunny feel, creating gold as a result.
For fans of: Flight of the Conchords, but those who are content with things maturing and moving on.
A concluding comment from Murray Hewitt: “Thank goodness you saved up to get your mum guitar back.”
Release Date: August 15th, 2025 | Producer: Bret McKenzie & Mickey Petralia | Label: Sub Pop
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