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.

Like these revered artists, Friendship frontman Dan Wriggins — apparently a poet and sometime manual labourer — has an extraordinary lyrical ability, with wry turns of phrase and quietly devastating lines. “I was losing myself/Not in a good way you used to talk about,” he sings on Alive, Twice, arguably the set’s centrepiece.

Their countrified sound and slackerish vision is no doubt an acquired taste. But for me the tunes, hooks and deadpan ambience mean I’ve hardly stopped listening to it since I first put it on.  

Bloody brilliant.  

Manic Street Preachers
Know Your Enemy
(Columbia)
⭑⭑⭑⭑

RELEASED in 2001, Know Your Enemy followed a relatively beige, if commercially successful period for Welsh alt rockers Manic Street Preachers.

This reissue reconstructs the record as it was originally envisaged — as two separate albums. Door To The River is the more reflective set, while the rebellious Solidarity returns to the more aggressive sound of their early 90s output.

There is a lot to take in, from singles Let Robeson Sing, their tribute to US singer and activist Paul Robeson, and Why So Sad (remixed by The Avalanches), to their cover of We Are All Bourgeois Now by 80s indie band McCarthy. The Bee Gees-inspired Miss Europa Discos Dancer sounds brilliant, as does their Noam Chomsky-sampling number one hit Masses Against The Classes.

With the deluxe edition featuring a slew of demos, it’s a rousing trip down memory lane.

Butcher Brown
Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey featuring Tennishu and R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND
(Concord Jazz)
⭑⭑

BUTCHER Brown are probably best known, at least in their home country of the US, for their cover of Little Richard’s Rip It Up, the theme tune to Monday Night Football during the 2020 NFL season. The jazz quintet’s recent one-off single BLACK MAN has been featured on BBC 6Music’s playlist.

Their new album mixes jazz big band music with hip hop, funk, soul and rock sounds. The single Liquid Light is an impressive cut, as is their take on The Notorious B.I.G’s Unbelievable (“Biggie Smalls is the illest”).
 
However, I feel lots of other US artists do this blending of genres a lot better, including Trombone Shorty from New Orleans, hip hop band The Roots, Kendrick Lamar on his epochal To Pimp A Butterfly record, and Kamasi Washington, who Butcher Brown have supported on tour.