Real Friends – Blue Hour

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”Here’s to new beginnings” is a popular toast at weddings, job promotion celebrations, and retirements, and yet most bands don’t get the opportunity to experience this feeling themselves when it comes to reinvention. Real Friends are back with a slick emo-tinged pop-punk sound on Blue Hour, their fourth full-length studio effort to date, and their first LP with vocalist Cody Muraro at the helm. The 13-song album is packed with raw emotion, songs about relationships, and in many cases the theme of starting anew is prevalent. The band, whom have been around since 2010, seem to lock into a new groove on Blue Hour with a sound leaning closer to The Wonder Years and The Menzingers, rather than pop-punk bands like The Starting Line and New Found Glory. Real Friends are making the most of their opportunity to reinvent themselves on this record that is filled with depth, rich lyrical imagery, and hard-hitting tracks that demand to be taken seriously.

Having recently released the second single of “Our Love Was Like A Sad Song” during the album announcement of Blue Hour, Real Friends quickly showcased how they have evolved since their last release. The single features a great melodic breakdown before the chorus of, “Our love was like a sad song / Built to be broken from day one / Forever treading in our bad blood / We were fucked from the start / Put together just to tear each other apart.” Lead singer Cody Muraro wails above the instruments with massive growl and grit in his vocals, while later showing restraint in quieter moments.

The first official taste of the Blue Hour-era of Real Friends came when the band released “Waiting Room,” a picturesque and mature song about mortality. The opening verse of, “After I knew there was only bad news / Your hospital bed felt more like a waiting room / And I had to leave before you left / Cause I was too weak to watch your last breath,” is as well thought out as it is heartbreaking to hear unfold in real time. I particularly was taken back by the vivid lyrical imagery found in the vulnerable lines of, “It hurt like hell when I dropped your clothes off at Goodwill / Now it smells like cigarette ash in my backseat / Somehow it feels like you’re next to me.” It’s amazing how a certain smell can take us right back to a memory, or a feeling, whether that be good or bad, and the band captures this feeling with grace and poise in the most heartbreaking of moments.

The other songs that surround the two singles are rich with emotion and great musicianship that one would expect for a band coming to terms with new beginnings. From the opening mid-tempo rocker of “I Was A Deer in Your Headlights” to front-half instant classics like “Cold Blooded” that are filled with emotive vocals, punishing percussion and atmospheric elements like the sound of rain falling in the background highlight a band willing to see where the music leads them.

Songs on the back half like “This Year is Out To Get Me” feature a great lyrical line of “January buried me in six feet of snow / With frozen time and frostbite breaking off my brittle hope,” to accentuate the change in time/seasons. While the hue of “Orange & Red” finds vocalist Muraro admitting that, “As God paints the neighborhood orange and red / The colors aren’t as bright as last year / It’s not the same without you next to me,” as he still comes to terms with a lost friend. “When You Were Here” is a great, late-album standout with some great starts and stops to the tempo in the music, while the closer of “I Know How This Ends” matches the aesthetic of the album artwork with leaving the door wide open to the world of possibilities that Real Friends can take their music next. And if Blue Hour is any indication of this direction, this will be a key artist to watch for the foreseeable future.

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