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In June, NPR asked its writers to name their favorite album of 2019 thus far. Found alongside popular entries like Solange’s When I Get Home and Weyes Blood’s Titanic Rising was Black Friday by Palehound.
The third album from the Boston-based trio, headed by Ellen Kempner, Black Friday offers 12 tracks of airy guitar riffs and the feeling of new love, both romantic and in friendship. It’s a significant departure from Palehound’s previous album, A Place I’ll Always Go, which was written after Kempner lost a close friend and her grandmother in the same year. A Place I’ll Always Go was packed with grief, felt in songs like “If You Met Her” and “Flowing Over,” a track about how sad music helped Kempner deal with overwhelming anxiety.
On Black Friday, the music still focuses on relationships but highlights a different side of those connections — the thrill a new love (“Stick N Poke”), feelings of inadequacy (“Worthy”), the sometimes bad passion in a relationship (“Killer”), the support of the people who love you (“Aaron”) — through heartfelt lyrics and spacey guitars.
This article appears in Nov 6-12, 2019.
