
CORPORATE LINE: Friendly Fire, the acclaimed sophomore solo album and film from Sean Lennon, has been released together by Capitol Records. A North American tour will kick off in mid-November, dates to be announced soon.
Following Into the Sun, Lennon’s 1998 solo debut, Friendly Fire is a cinematic suite of songs which share the same dizzying wealth of musical styles as its predecessor, but eschews some of its freeform tendencies for more traditional song structure and some unifying themes.
The years between albums found Lennon collaborating with everyone from his mother, Yoko Ono, to Money Mark, Deltron 3030, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Vincent Gallo, Thurston Moore, John Zorn, Ryan Adams, The Boredoms, and Ben Lee, to name a few. But they also provided him with the opportunity to let Friendly Fire evolve naturally, at its own pace, and to limit participation to talented friends, of which he’s blessed with many.
“There was a long period after the first album where I felt disillusioned with the machinery of the industry,” says Lennon. “It’s not that I stopped recording, playing and performing, I did all of those things, just more discreetly. Friendly Fire is an experiment to see what it might be like to do music more publicly again.”
THE GOOD:
“Dead Meat” – The paradox of “Dead Meat” is quite interesting. While lyrics about someone being “dead meat” for messing with the wrong team and how they are going to “get what you deserve,” the music is ambient and beautiful. It’s almost like the nicest guy in the world getting cut off on the highway and going mental.
“Parachute” – “If I have to die tonight/ I’d rather be with you/ cut the parachute before we die… we have to have some fun before we hit the ground.” This is an odd and yet lovely song. It seems these sorts of clever ironies are Sean’s bread and butter.
“Headlights” – A completely nonsensical song that caught me signing along and hitting replay. There are almost no lyrics and for some astonishing reason Sean Lennon is able to hook me in.
THE AVERAGE:
“Wait For Me” – It’s interesting how Sean has written a song that sounds like it could fit nicely in the George Harrison catalog.
THE BAD:
Nothing.
FRANKLY: “On Again, Off Again” is the epitome of Friendly Fire—a simple little song that comes and goes without much hoopla. It’s a very mellow album that grows on you the more times you listen.
+ Rae Gun
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