Philly band Friendship have announced the follow-up to 2022’s Love The Stranger (our Album Of The Week at the time). Titled Caveman Wakes Up, it’ll be out in mid-May on Merge. Today, we get to hear brooding lead single “Free Association,” which comes with a video that the band shot on a Super 8 on a closed boardwalk in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

Here’s what lead singer (and published poet) Dan Wriggins has to say about “Free Association”:

Another one about love and other people and how the only hope we’ve got in the search for meaning is to make it up. I was hanging out with the folk singer Kath Bloom years ago in her yard, by the barn, and I think I made a comment on an ancient riding mower she had, and she said, “Yeah, everything we have was given to us.” “Born with a weak heart,” of course, swiped from David Byrne. The Mellotron sax and voice patch were both jokes that we ended up loving. Also the only song with synth bass. We’re proud as hell of the production.

As for the video, Zach Puls directed it. We went to Seaside Heights, NJ. Realized after the fact that Jersey Shore took place there. We were hunting for a lost empire, but I can’t reveal too much.

Listen to and watch “Free Association.”

TRACKLIST:
01 “Salvage Title”
02 “Tree Of Heaven”
03 “Betty Ford”
04 “Free Association”
05 “Hollow Skulls”
06 “Artex”
07 “Love Vape”
08 “Wildwood In January”
09 “Resident Evil”
10 “All Over The World”
11 “Fantasia”

TOUR DATES:
04/05 – Durham, NC @ Brickside at Duke Coffeehouse
04/06 – Asheville, NC @ Ayurprana
04/07 – Columbia, SC @ New Brookland Tavern

Caveman Wakes Up is out 5/16 via Merge. Pre-order it here.