American heavy duo FRIENDSHIP COMMANDERS drop the video clip ‚KEEPING SCORE‘ as part of the two-track advance single from their forthcoming new album „BEAR„, which has been scheduled for release on October 10, 2025.
Friendship Commanders – Keeping Score [Official Music Video]
These exceptional artists from Nashville, Tennessee have already teased the album announcement with the video for ‚MELT‚ over the last few days.
The dual singles illustrate the tonal expansiveness contained within the ten-track body of work that is „BEAR“, where there is heaviness and also a kind of lightness. ‚KEEPING SCORE‘ sees songwriter Buick Audra confront cycles of women injuring girls due to being threatened by their existence, something she experienced personally. ‚MELT‘ addresses the loneliness and confusion that comes with being rejected by members of one’s own gender in adulthood.
FRIENDSHIP COMMANDERS state: „‚KEEPING SCORE‘ was the first song written for ‚BEAR‘ and I think of it as the mother of the album“, vocalist and guitarist Buick Audra reveals. „When I was a kid, the mother of my best friend, a boy, singled me out as a problem for her son and all the other boys in our skateboarding crew. She was afraid that I was corrupting them somehow. She called around and spread non-truths about me to the other parents, some of whom I’d never met. It was devastating, humiliating beyond words. Years later, I realized women in my own generation were doing the same thing to little girls who knew their sons. Little girls! Age seven, eight! Being called ‚hussies‘ by grown women! Color me horrified. Color me involved. Now that I can speak for myself, I will also speak for girls like me. Someone should. The propulsive riff on this song is my war cry.“
Jerry Roe adds: „These songs were so exciting to hear when Buick played them for me for the first time – pretty unlike anything we’d ever done up to this point in terms of energy and propulsion“, the drummer and bass player writes. „Our music has tended to move either fast or slow while somehow feeling heavy at all times, and these songs lean and move forward in a way that’s much brighter and quite joyful, even through the subject matter. To play them almost feels like being flown through the air towards a gigantic bullseye made of fiery confetti! I can’t wait to play this new album live.“
Friendship Commanders – MELT (Official Video)
FRIENDSHIP COMMANDERS state: „The song ‚MELT‘ is about realizing that I’ve never really fit with my own kind, something I’ve only come to terms with in the last two years or so“, Buick Audra explains. „I’ve spent so much time and energy trying to be a woman among women, but at the end of the day, I’m just always over here being too loud. Too much. And yet, somehow also not enough. It’s a stunning paradox. Musically, the song has a sugary quality to it, which is also referenced in the line, ‚that’s how they punch you, sugar over fists‘. This track beats me up because it’s so painfully true, but it’s also a delight to play.“
