Another Form of Relief

A few weeks ago, I was convinced by a friend to go with them to see a band they like called Lucky Soul. Around the same time, I discovered a band called Friends Of The Bride. I forget how I found them now, but that doesn’t really matter. I listened to a couple of songs on their Myspace and really liked them. A few days before the Lucky Soul gig, I checked to see who the support band were for that show. You can see where all of this is going, can’t you?

The headline on their Myspace is “tonight we’re going to party like it’s 1959″, and they certainly aren’t kidding. Every song sounds like it could have come from the era of swing and big band music, but it somehow manages to remain fresh at the same time. This could partly be down to the fact they largely use a conventional setup (guitar, bass and drums), with the more extravagant instruments subtly included on record. By the time the gig itself rolled around, I was far more excited about seeing them than the headliners. Although their set turned out to be a little on the short side (six songs by my estimation), every one of them was a winner.

‘Cut Down On My Friends’ is an obvious standout, a bitter tirade about needy friends accousing the singer of being anti-social. “Everybody’s telling me I gotta get a little more social life / Everybody’s ringing me and everybody thinks they know what I like” he laments before declaring he’s going to have less to do with them by moving to the suburbs. This was the b-side to the band’s first single, so they are setting the bar pretty high, given this could have been a superb single in itself.

MP3 Friends Of The Bride - Cut Down On My Friends (expired)

Friends of the Bride’s second single, the rip-roaring ‘Buckle Up, Sunshine!’, will be released by Young & Lost Club Records on March 19.

Friends Of The Bride: Myspace