Friendship’s Merge debut, Love the Stranger, moves like a country record skipping in just the right spot, leaving its fellow travelers longing for a place they’ve only visited in their dreams. Guitarist Peter Gill, drummer Michael Cormier-O’Leary, bassist Jon Samuels, and hawkeyed balladeer Dan Wriggins map out the group’s particular, breathtaking landscape and invite the listener to share in its glory.
 
Between instrumental pit stops at “Kum & Go” and “Quickchek,” local references in Love the Stranger create a catalog of human perception, presented as roadside attractions. From grape jelly residue (“Ramekin”) to the site of a demolished cathedral (“St. Bonaventure”) to King of the Hill quotations (“Smooth Pursuit”), the record’s images craft a symbolic language of high and low Americana, both evocative and consistently accessible. Spending time with Love the Stranger creates a community—one in which the window between the listener and the music-maker shatters in full, until all that remains are the fragments you decide to pick up together.
 
Friendship is probably already your favorite band’s favorite band, a long-revered IYKYK of DIY with a devoted cult following from Wawa to In-N-Out. With Love the Stranger, the Friendship universe only continues to expand and grow more open-hearted, more inviting, with every passing note. It’s a record that locates the listener exactly where the listener is, and wherever that may be, makes a friend out of them, too. All said and done, the age-old maxim of “Mr. Chill” holds true: “You be real with me and I’ll be real with you.”Your description here. 

Tracklisting
1.St. Bonaventure [3:51]
2.What's the Move [2:49]
3.Blue Canoe [0:20]
4.Hank [4:22]
5.Chomp Chomp [3:52]
6.Love's [0:55]
7.No Way [3:49]
8.Alive Twice [2:49]
9.Quickchek [0:30]
10.Ramekin [3:38]
11.Mr. Chill [3:11]
12.UDF [1:04]
13.Ryde [3:44]
14.Season [2:49]
15.Kum & Go [0:43]
16.Ugly Little Victory [3:27]
17.Smooth Pursuit [3:07]
 
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