Album Review: Friend? – Friend? EP
By Sean Cullivan
This is the debut release from Irish instrumental post-rock band Friend? It’s a four track EP, a very good offering with lots of promise and it’s obvious that these guys are skilled musicians.
As is a defining practice in the post-rock genre (Tortoise, Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Sigur Rós being the major movers) there is wonderful use of contrasting dynamics throughout. There are great builds to the songs with dense atmospherics and complex orchestration fusing into a wonderful swirling collage of sound when the songs peak. Each track explodes with energy at least once and this album really reaches the heavens when it soars.
Certainly this is a record that needs patience and a few listens to unlock all its secrets. Instrumental parts you never noticed before will come out of the woodwork with repeated listens and the whole thing really is a tapestry of great sounds. One place where Friend? differ from Sigur Rós is with some great hardrocking sections which reveal the influence of new prog bands such as Pure Reason Revolution. I really liked these parts and they really took the songs up to a climax.
One thing I didn’t like was the song titles. Titles like “Dan2 and the purple and black dream jeans”, “slaps”, “what meatloaf wouldn’t do for love” and “tut tut tut” end up sounding jokey. If I picked up the EP in a store and took a look at the track listing on the back without a doubt I would not buy it for this reason. Something else that counts against the Friend? EP is that the song structure tends to be sort of formulaic.
Overall though I enjoyed this EP. This is a very good debut record which showcases lots of potential and virtuosity and it’s a rewarding listen. It’ll be interesting to see what this band does in the future which on the evidence of their debut EP it should be good.