Song of The Week 7/10/23

“I Think My Friends Hate Me”

Welcome home music lovers of the greater Wilmington area. Back for the first time in this ungodly hot and humid month to bring forth another slate of songs for your enjoyment and potential discovery. Our first selection for July is hot off the press and is already being spun and streamed in all corners of Carolina. Without further delay we are ecstatic to bring you our review for Ridgewood’s new song, “I Think My Friends Hate Me” off of their new, self-titled EP, Ridgewood.

Review and Exposition

The roots of self-titled projects run as deep as the history of recorded music itself and have been utilized in innumerably diverse ways. Oftentimes, self-titling serves as an introduction to the identity of the creators and the direction of their music. Many long-beloved artists have begun their careers with self-titled works. In the punk realm, visionaries like Blondie in 1976, the ​​The Clash in 1977, and The Ramones in 1976 all began their climb to prominence with band names adorning record faces. The list of immortal self-titled albums goes on into the void, with the point remaining that something is there to be unfurled, something to be discovered on part of the artist, ushering in a new offering to the world at large. Ultimately a new voice emerges, looking to declare themselves. The exercise of eponymous album naming is much more than a simple solution when a band is looking to brand and label an entire body of work. It is countless hours of self-defining labor, a point of demarcation. Simply put: it is the sonic embodiment of the band.
This is the second project from Ridgewood, outside of a few single releases and following 2022’s debut album, I’m Glad We’re Doing This. Ridgewood has described this work as a more cohesive creative effort on part of all four members of the band. Elliott Stanford (main vocals/ rhythm guitar) and Charlie Peters (lead guitar) served as the main song writing team on the previous record, but now Bennett Hair (drums) and Matt Dauphin (Bass) both dispense a more active role in the writing and directive processes for their respective parts on the songs. Each contribution is actively felt on the EP as four individual bleeding hearts melt into one sound that still empowers each to shine. The departures made from project to project display an expanded focus on each song while remaining true to the penetrating personal narratives Ridgewood has become accustomed to.
Lead track “I Think My Friends Hate Me,” works as a befitting introduction into the mechanizations of insecurity, one of the main thematic explorations of this EP. “That tune fucking sucks”/ You’re a scrawny bastard,” the first moments of the track include harsh manifestations of external criticisms that embody our own internal anxieties about our perception which spiral into damaging patterns of self-hatred. These voices shout into what feels like the back of your head as a gentle, low end melody carries us to a brief pause before Peters shatters the tension with a heavy slice and gets the song rolling. The story travels alongside a night of bathroom party antics, downing uppers with friends till consciousness slips away (in line with you and your friends odds of getting home anytime soon), to our main subject being left standing alone at 4:30 in the morning, in a cloud of abandoned desolation and left to their own devices. Friends, lovers, mothers, and even one’s god can’t help the attitudes of anxiety that shut us down, force a retreat back within and allow for the descent of the mind towards a belief that we are hated by those closest to us. If anything, Ridgewood highlights the pressures from these external sources feeding into what may be seen from the outside as a delusion, but within the spiraling mind, a damning state of helplessness. I’ve always loved the clashing of contradictions that exist in punk genres. Tragic, unnerving, and raw lyrical testaments coalesce with the turbulent, screeching, and rapid-fire instrumentation to form a home for those wishing to give voice to their grievances in a powerful way. “I Think My Friends Hate Me,” along with the rest of the EP, is effective in encapsulating these punk traditions and inviting the listener into their struggle so that a greater circle of healing can take place, one where we all welcome to air our deepest insecurities and be met with loving community, to be reassured that our friends actually don’t hate us at the least.

What’s Next

Just as the bending and wailing of Elliott’s voice lingers in your head long after a listen to Ridgewood, Ridgewood’s imprint on the music scene of Wilmington is sure to linger around for this summer and many to come. They’ll be getting around North Carolina for the remainder of July with shows in Charlotte on the 15th, at The Place on the 28th, and then traveling south of the border to play a show in Charleston, SC on August 4th. Send all your love to the Ridgewood folks by streaming Ridgewood, out on all platforms for music consumption.

Ben “Danger” Matthews | PCE

Chief Word Person