“He sounds like he’s dying.” When my wife — by no means an aficionado of diaristic indie country-rock steeped in melancholia — happened upon me listening to Friendship’s new album Caveman Wakes Up while doing yard work last weekend, her response mirrored Cher Horowitz’s disdain toward “the maudlin music of the university station” upon encountering “Fake Plastic Trees.” It’s true enough that the wordless mewls and moans with which Dan Wriggins closes out “Hollow Skulls” could be confused for a man in his death throes. He definitely doesn’t come across as vibrant in that moment. He seems fragile, weary, beaten down but resilient. He’s not triumphant, but he’s getting by.
