Today will be a busy day with a lot of running around: First I’ll be heading down to Coney Island for the Mermaid Parade. And then eventually, I’ll be at Clem’s for my second-ever DJ set. But there’s still business and the show must go on as best as it could, right?
So let’s get to it.
Nashville-based melodic, heavy duo Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — have released two albums 2016’s Dave, 2018’s Steve Albini-produced Bill and two EPs 2020’s Hold On To Yourself and last year’s Release The Rest, an exclusive vinyl compilation of singles released since 2020, including “Stonechild”/”Your Reign Is Over,” which continued their ongoing collaboration with the engineering and mixing team of Kurt Ballou and Brad Boatright.
The Nashville-based duo’s forthcoming Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS was recorded in Ballou’s Salem, MA-based studio, GodCity.
Last month, I wrote about album single, “Fail,” a grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming and enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Buick Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. “Fail” manages to simultaneously evoke a cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that just seems to fall a bit short.
The duo explained that the song was written to honor the memory of Spore‘s and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s Marc Orleans, who committed suicide in June 2020. “We chose to make the song energetic, dissonant, and big, just as he would like it. Bit of a departure for us from our usual doomy vibe, but it’s still the same band, we think,” the band says.
MASS‘ third and latest single “High Sun” sees the Nashville-based duo adopting a 120 Minutes-era MTV alt-rock/shoegazey sound. While being a bit of a departure from the doomy heaviness they’re best known for, “High Sun” continues a run of a material rooted in lived-in experience with the new single further establishing the album’s overall concept: leaving a place you no longer feel welcome.
“When I moved away from Boston, I hauled an enormous amount of shame along with me. I had experienced these weird, high-impact moments that were not only troubling on their own, but the aftermath saw me painted as an outcast in my former social groups,” Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra explains. “And I was young enough to believe that I was the problem. I had been in one controlling relationship in which being different was treated as disobedient, and I was punished for it—publicly. Being a person who was wired to take on blame, I absorbed it. But now when I look at the story, I see the manipulation, the dynamics that repeated themselves. They were experts at making people feel like outsiders, experts at deflecting responsibility. I wanted to drag it all out into the daylight with this big, fuzzy song. I’ve been waiting a long time to say this.”
Directed by the band’s Buick Audra, the accompanying video for “High Sun” was shot on sun-splashed Super 8. We see Audra by herself and footage of her and her bandmate performing the song; but both are treated with trippy filters — with the film at one point seemingly lit on fire.
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