…Friendship’s fourth album finds the Philadelphia band ascending to greatness, arriving at the place they’ve spent the past decade going. It’s one of the most assured indie rock albums in recent memory, the sound of a brilliant writer coming into his own and a band honing in on the ideal aesthetic complement for his songs, imbuing his quiet indignities with a plaintive grace.
Dan 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 daily struggle, but not without a sense of humor. Those are trendy influences here at the peak of Lendermania, but Friendship are not bandwagon jumpers. As two of the main figures…