Friendship Is Deep

About

This 2008 reissue of Nevada City, California’s Golden Shoulder’s (long-out-of-print) second album adds two additional tracks that appeared on subsequent compilations. The group, singer-songwriter Adam Kline and a cadre of talented sidemen who found time off from their other gigs, including Josh Klinghoffer (John Frusciante, Gnarls Barkley), Todd Roper (Cake) and Neal Morgan (Joanna Newsom), and play a skewered, tough urban-psychedelic pop. The rhythms tend towards streetwise (“Golden Soldiers”) while the arrangements swirl with ornate accents. Vibes add an ethereal layer to the doomed confession of “Nothing’s All Right.” Trumpet and piano compliment the spirited romp of “This is a Test.” Kline can’t help but crack wise and his quick jabbing delivery adds extra punctuation to his caustic poems addressing life’s questions. “Oh no, I think I might have been wrong” he repeats throughout “The New Breed,” sounding like a dejected Ray Davies trying to make sense of situations that fall out of his control.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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