4 out of 5

Engineer: Graeme Gibson

Label: Perishable Records

The list of projects with which the Joan of Arc kids have gotten involved is exhausting – some are side projects, some are full-fledged bands, some are… the same band… re-branded?  Who knows.  The Perishable Records output of this album plus a Joan of Arc album convinced me to finally give the band a look – the screechy vocals and instrumental noodling I’d read about on the JoA album ‘The Gap’ had always convinced me to brush the band off as emo nonsense…  And they are, to a certain extent, even in this offshoot, but the wealth of output also provides a lot of creativity, and while the wandering definitely produces some annoying bits, the freedom of composition they’ve learned as both a group and individuals makes for some tracks you just can’t hear from either a traditional band or full-on improvised sessions.

Friend / Enemy, for the majority of the album, strikes a balance between looseness and song that is made even more cohesive – I think – by engineer Graeme Gibson, who has some chops reigning kitchen-sink compositions into songs thanks to his experience with Califone.  That connection (again, perhaps) also gives the group access to a wide range of sounds that don’t pop up as notably with JoA, so some of this stuff is just super rich and super deep.  The lyrics also, mostly, seem to stick to a topic instead of wandering to randomness, but toward the end of the album a 7-minute jam gives way to the noodling that’s typical of the Arc, and thus prevents 10 Songs from feeling fully realized as an album.