Psych-rockers Friedberg trim the fat in debut album Hardcore Workout Queen
The band share their first full-length offering.
Photo: Lewis Vorn
Today, all-female dance-rock four-piece Friedberg (named after singer-songwriter Anna Friedberg) release their long-awaited debut LP, Hardcore Workout Queen. Their first extended release since 2021’s Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, it neatly collates the band’s prior groove-pop singles, Hello, My Best Friend and The Greatest with a further selection of late-night, dancefloor numbers, thrumming with fuzzy guitars.
Hardcore Workout Queen opens with 100 Times, one of the best deep cuts of the bunch and a worthy opener to the record. Instantly, the mood is set, with an endlessly dance-y, lo-fi electro number comfortably justifying the five-minute mark. It owes as much to the relatively obscure, stripped-back approach of Lindsey Buckingham’s (ex-Fleetwood Mac’s) Seeds We Sow era as it does airy chart-toppers like Sam Fender and The Killers.
Venice 142, meanwhile, opens with a swaggering bassline straight out of HOTEI’s Battle Without Honor or Humanity (made famous from Quentin Tarantino’s 2003 Kill Bill). Frontwoman Anna Friedberg’s delicate, almost spider-silk vocals weave their magic as the track picks up and becomes one of the coolest of the bunch.
For fans of Friedberg from the very beginning, Hardcore Workout Queen promises the same signature, pop-rock hooks that established the quartet all those years ago – there are catchy choruses, moments of crunching guitar, and, of course, cowbell, perhaps most notable in So Dope. When you hit ‘play’ on Friedberg, you know what you’re gonna get.
But the all-female group saw a chance to flex their artistic muscles here, setting off into the unknown with tunes such as I Sometimes Do (But Mostly Might), a southern-inflected track with gospel-like edge to it. The album’s closer, Pull Me Off the Passing Lane, is melancholic, echoing Of Monsters and Men, serving a thoughtful climax to the piece.
This collection of intriguing, aviators-wrapped dance-rock tunes make for a more-than-passable debut; throw in singles Hello, My Best Friend and The Greatest – each as fresh and exciting as ever – and infectious title track, and you’re onto one hell of a winner. Hardcore Workout Queen is an album for summer dusk; that nameless place between blistering afternoons and red-tinted sunsets. But whether you’re a top-down, Jack Daniel’s-in-a-cold-can type of person, star-gazer at 2am, or something else entirely, you can’t resist the hypnotic, almost psychedelic pull of Friedberg’s full-length debut.
Hardcore Workout Queen is out now via Clouds Hill.