MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Album reviews with IAN SINCLAIR
New releases from Friendship, Manic Street Preachers and Butcher Brown
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
Friendship
Love The Stranger
(Merge)
⭑⭑⭑⭑
HAVING recorded three albums on tiny independent record labels, Philadelphia indie four-piece Friendship make their major independent label debut with Love The Stranger.
Playing unhurried lo-fi Americana, the band have created a downbeat masterwork in the same vein as classic 90s records from Joe Pernice’s Scud Mountain Boys and David Berman’s Silver Jews.
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