Extraordinary music legend Gavin Friday releases new album "catholic" today (digital) with physical release date slated for August. (MB3/EMI)
4 star Reviews from Uncut, Q, Mojo and more!
"torchy, mirror-ball beauty. These are his silkiest arrangements, but shadowy undercurrents ensure the tension never lets up."
- MOJO 4 stars
"Friday shamelessly rekindles the Eno/Lanois unforgettable shimmer, croons against the dying of the light, and somehow emerges defiantly alive."
- Uncut 4 stars
"Echoes of Yeats writing about the violent heart... the music policy is sui generis, nocturnal-futurist with Friday's yearning half falsetto melodies drifting past moonscapes lit by neo ambient and late night club pulses " - Hot Press
" In short, it's a captivating listen from a distinguished performer. Welcome back, Gavin.
– Q Magazine 4 stars
"16 years off the circuit don’t seem to have withered his pen" - The Post (Ireland)
DOWNLOAD "ABLE" MP3:
"Able, the album's opening salvo, is an elated blast of stadium-bating synth-rock that is more uplifting than elegiac. Writhing in the song's spiralling keyboard sounds and gently chiming guitars, Friday purrs in his inimitable style about love, loss and letting go. Buoyed by a pulsating bass line and Friday's gruff half-spoken vocals, the song simmers and boils into a rousing frenzy of poeticism and rock panache, like U2 imbibing the introspective talents of Leonard Cohen."
Q Magazine Track of the Day
Q Magazine Track of the Day
“Able” is an unexpected masterpiece that gives us a glimpse of what is to come from Friday’s new album.” – Pop In Stereo
16 years since his last album, it’s time to salute anti-hero Gavin Friday, who returns to form with his new album “catholic” set for digital release in North America on May 17th with CD to come in late August on MB3 Records/ EMI Music.
In recent years, Gavin Friday’s career has been dominated by cinema, soundtrack and theatre. So its no surprise that their collective, lush shadow looms over catholic. Friday takes conventional song structures and scores them, adding Bowie-synths, sci-fi swirls, epic strings and Germanic rhythms. Friday still puts the same energy and passion into his work that he did as a founding member of seminal post-punk band, Virgin Prunes.
Fittingly enough, “catholic” comes to us at a time of upheaval, of political chaos, and of spiritual, financial and moral bankruptcy. Our world is a very different place since Friday’s last album, Shag Tobacco, was released. The intervening decade and a half coincided with a prolific work period for the singer. From award winning soundtracks - William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, In America, The Boxer, Get Rich Die Tryin' (with Quincy Jones) and three songs to In The Name Of The Father which featured two collaborations with U2’s Bono ("In The Name Of The Father", "Billy Boola") and a Golden Globe nomination for “You Made Me The Thief of Your Heart” as sung by Sinead O’Connor - to collaborating on Nothing like the Sun with Gavin Bryars and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Then there was his acting debut (in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto ), Scott Walker collaborations and a Kurt Weill show at Dublin Theatre Festival. In personal terms, he endured illness, the end of his marriage and his father’s death. To some, the personal is political; but Gavin Friday is clear that this is “an emotional, not a political, album”. The singer likens catholic to “waking from a deep sleep, of letting go and coming to terms with loss”. And somewhere in the middle of all that, there are slivers of love, contentment and romance.
“Sometimes when you’re building songs, they tell you ‘look after me’ or ‘fuck off, and leave me alone’”
No comments:
Post a Comment