With influences ranging from Neil Young and Yo La Tengo to Lomelda and Lambchop, Friendship’s new album ‘Caveman Wakes Up’ promises a delicious cacophony of poetry, pain and alt-folk – with a dollop of heartbreak and longing thrown in for good measure.
Written by Dan Wriggins while he crashed at MJ Lenderman and Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman’s home in North Carolina, it finds him trying to make sense of the darkness of the human mind…
‘Salvage Title’ offers a stripped-back and slow-burning intro before ‘Tree of Heaven’ adds some anthemic flourishes and an almost hypnotic, trancelike tempo, complete with a story about ‘a father yelling at his kids for not looking both ways’. These acute observations that paint a picture of Wriggins’ storytelling will become a feature of the record.
‘Free Association’ is a Tim Kasher-esque breakup song that looks at how you can miss a mundane routine – ‘I used to have someone’; ‘We’d put something on and complain about work’ – while ‘Love Vape’ offers a jaunty interlude with a wonky bass line and lyrics referencing cheap cigarettes, plastic bags and Christmas lights: ‘Too late to turn back now. If you don’t know how to end it, you can just fade out’.
The penultimate ‘All Over the World’ includes a conversation – ‘Hey buddy, where are you at? I’m all over the world’ – that is repeated with increasing emotion, while the closing ‘Fantasia’ reminded us of Owen with its matter-of-fact lyrics (‘You left the room for another beer’) and delicate strings.
Judging by this stunning album, it won’t only be a Caveman waking up to the power of Friendship…
