Me against the world album shirt3/29/2023 His history as a manual laborer-Maine lobster fisherman, groundskeeper-often serves as inspiration for Friendship’s lyrics, delivered in a low warble to which an aura of Real Talk is often projected. The best moments blur the distinction-a sputtering, almost atonal keyboard serves as the instrumental backdrop for the intense heart-to-heart of “Alive Twice,” whereas the robust alt-country of “Hank” ends with a pawn shop guitar’s circuitry giving out, a fitting coda for a tribute to making the most out of our faulty tools. Each member plays at least four instruments and contributes production, while the album is split into proper songs and improvisatory interludes. Similar to Florist’s recent self-titled album, Love the Stranger is counter-programming to the pandemic’s ongoing challenge to communal artistry, rebranding a once insular project as a potluck. Each of the four core members of Friendship has their own widely varying solo projects, most notably, 2nd Grade, a band whose compact power-pop is an inverse of Friendship. If Friendship’s previous album, Dreamin’, was meant to reflect the rejuvenating power of that one beer in the fridge after a long day of work, Love the Stranger is Wriggins splitting a six pack of the good shit for a celebratory toast. Depending on your identification with Friendship’s slow-and-low lifestyle, it’s also the moment that epitomizes the appeal and frustration of Love the Stranger, an album that sees a higher calling in taking it all in-especially if it’s the boring stuff.Īs their debut on indie institution Merge, the mere existence of Love the Stranger is a stress test on Friendship’s ethos, a 45-minute Big Moment. All of the real action takes place in the past and future. He hears that a local cathedral is being destroyed and imagines how it’ll affect the person he’s singing to. Wriggins dreams of getting away, not necessarily out of town. That’s a long moment, and not much happens in it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |