Tenement / Friendly Fire – Split

I’m new to this whole vinyl scene. While it’s something I’ve been interested in for quite sometime, I’ve only just now really been able get into actually buying vinyl and listening to them on a frequent basis. This, of course, means I’m not fully fluent with the different appeals of the wax release, but to re-integrate an old saying: “I may not know art, but I know what I like.” By this, I mean that there are certain 7 inches that I love to pull out and listen to over and over again. There’s something in the songs and texture that makes me want to go through the extra effort to play the vinyl instead of just clicking play on my iPod. There’s something there that makes me sit the three minutes until the needle lifts up only for me to reach out and place it once again on the piece of wax.

Sadly, the split seven inch from Tenement and Friendly Fire does not have that certain something that makes me want to go through the extra effort of flipping open the record player. I think the fact that it took me close to three weeks to realize that it was a split between two bands as opposed to a seven inch called Friendly Fire by a band called Tenement kind of exemplifies what I mean. Once I sat down and realized that, I scrutinized the three songs a bit more, but still found little to keep me coming back for repeated plays.

The songs themselves aren’t too bad. Tenement offers a nice pop-punk song with The Best and Worst of Times. Pulling a bit from the No Idea spectrum of pop-punk and from Don Giovanni Records(imagine The Measure [SA] with a male singer), The Best and Worst of Times isn’t a song that would be skipped over in the midst of a full album but isn’t strong enough to be the sole track on the first side. There’s not enough of a redeeming quality to get the person to want to play it over and over again and a good track from a seven inch needs to make you want to do that.

For their part, Friendly Fire do a much better job at getting the listener coming back for repeated listens. Their two songs, Sinking Feelings and Homesick, have some slight pop-punk tendencies but have also expanded on that to add a more emotional and and frantic need into the song. The vocals are sung in a harsh sense of need with moments of self-deprecating need, think Jawbreaker and you can picture the impassioned need.

The Tenement / Friendly Fire split is not the most disappointing seven inch I have in my collection but it’s still missing that allure that makes me go back and listen to others in my collection on such a frequent basis. With such a limited about of time available to them on a seven inch, bands need to really shine and neither band are able to fully do that here.