“He appears like he’s dying.” When my spouse — certainly not an aficionado of diaristic indie country-rock steeped in melancholia — occurred upon me listening to Friendship’s new album Caveman Wakes Up whereas doing yard work final weekend, her response mirrored Cher Horowitz’s disdain towards “the maudlin music of the college station” upon encountering “Faux Plastic Timber.” It’s true sufficient that the wordless mewls and moans with which Dan Wriggins closes out “Hole Skulls” could possibly be confused for a person in his dying throes. He undoubtedly doesn’t come throughout as vibrant in that second. He appears fragile, weary, overwhelmed down however resilient. He’s not triumphant, however he’s getting by.
And but, in documenting that depleted state, Caveman Wakes Up actually is a triumph. Friendship’s fourth album finds the Philadelphia band ascending to greatness, arriving on the place they’ve spent the previous decade going. It’s one of the vital assured indie rock albums in current reminiscence, the sound of a superb author coming into his personal and a band honing in on the perfect aesthetic complement for his songs, imbuing his quiet indignities with a plaintive grace.
Wriggins sings in coarse baritone barks and bellows that evoke bards of desolation like David Berman and Jason Molina, sketching out moments from a humble life marked by loneliness and every day wrestle, however not with no humorousness. These are stylish influences right here on the peak of Lendermania, however Friendship aren’t bandwagon jumpers. As two of the primary figures behind Pricey Life Information, the label that launched Boat Songs, drummer Michael Cormier-O’Leary and bassist Jon Samuels have carved out an important area on the intersection of indie rock, nation, and experimental music. (Their 2025 launch slate of Fust, Florry, and Little Mazarn would make a hell of a bundle tour.) Friendship, who leveled as much as old-guard indie mainstay Merge for 2022’s Love The Stranger, have been proper there within the combine because the early 2010s — 4 guys spending their youthful primes plugging away at a profession in indie rock at a time when residing such a life has by no means been extra virtually tough.
That pursuit has clearly taken its toll on Wriggins. “All Over The World,” a standout buried close to the tip of the brand new album, is a deeply affecting portrait of a life spent toiling away at menial labor between lengthy stints on the street that disrupt every other profession prospects. “Bought a job pulling weeds/ On different folks’s property,” he murmurs. “Shoring up liquidity/ On different folks’s property.” The refrain shifts to a coworker from the landscaping firm checking in whereas Friendship are on tour: “‘Hey buddy, the place are you at?’/ I’m all around the world/ I’m all around the world.” Is that this lifetime of shotgunned Busch Lights and dandelion seeds in your eye actually price it? You may hear Wriggins considering that query with each drawled syllable. But there’s additionally a twinkle of optimism and acceptance in there, perhaps even a wry smirk. The track can simply as simply be learn as a celebration of his chosen path.
Caveman Wakes Up is stuffed with scenes like that, snapshots of an maturity that may really feel like each a noble pursuit and a protracted adolescence. Some are lighthearted, like a go to to the comfort retailer with “the most affordable cigarettes on Earth” on “Love Vape.” Others are heavy, like “Betty Ford,” on which Wriggins is moved to tears by a video in regards to the late first girl and recovering addict: “As a result of I’ve been in ache/ I’ve been miles away/ And I’ve performed every thing I might consider to cowl it up.” He strikes an ideal steadiness between humor and remorse on the exasperated “Resident Evil,” a track about coexisting with a godawful rando roommate that in some way turns the sentence “Who’s that shithead in my lounge taking part in Resident Evil?” into an anthemic chorus.
That refrain hits prefer it does in no small half due to the beautiful glittering chords that ripple throughout the background. Guitarist Peter Gill, who churns out bite-size power-pop gems in his different band 2nd Grade, right here paints the corners of Wriggins’ songs with delicate magnificence or foregrounds economical Loopy Horse riffs that slice throughout songs like “Tree Of Heaven.” The pogoing melody that powers lead single “Free Affiliation” is hooky and propulsive with out crowding out the weeping violin, the meditative piano, the tumbling toms. In a manner that can attraction to followers of fellow searcher Cassandra Jenkins, each ingredient in these preparations feels fastidiously thought of, strategically assembled to create a state of everlasting twilight.
The result’s one thing like Nap Eyes fronted by Owen Ashworth: a batch of unhappy, subtle roots-rock songs that work as again porch music in addition to poetic texts to be dissected. You don’t should be a ravenous artist to narrate to the jaded warning on opener “Salvage Title,” the misplaced optimism of “Hole Skulls,” or the embittered romantic longing of nearer “Fantasia.” You don’t should have chilled on the stoop from “Tree Of Heaven,” visited the frigid seaside from “Wildwood In January,” or pushed underneath the graffiti-strewn overpass from “Love Vape,” and it’s not essential to clock Wriggins’ references to Jerry Garcia and Speaking Heads. You don’t even should be a part of Friendship’s getting older millennial cohort, a technology that’s struggling to afford starter properties, pilloried by the gig economic system. All you have to join with Caveman Wakes Up is an acquaintance with disappointment and hopes that stubbornly, maybe naively persist.
Caveman Wakes Up is out 5/16 on Merge.
