Hailing from Tipp City, United States, Friend/Monell is a duo rooted in a long history and hard-earned chemistry. Jeffrey Friend, former drummer, engineer, and producer of the award-winning band Ludlow Creek, teams up with Ray Monell, a songwriter with three decades of storytelling under his belt and a background in visual production. After Ludlow Creek’s disbandment in the summer of 2025, this partnership resets the project with their original single “Fly Away,” released on 23rd January 2026. This marks Jeffrey Friend’s return to releasing music under his own name, and it kicks off an ambitious run of thirteen planned releases this year.
The song opens with glistening, tight guitar strums that instantly set a lively, road-ready tone. There’s a clarity to the sound, like fresh air rushing through an open car window. Then the vocal drops in—deep, bold, and unapologetic—as Friend sings, “My eyes fixed ahead on places a lot more heavenly and it’s there that I must go / Go ahead and whisper what might just be wrong with me.” Right away, “Fly Away” plants its flag: this is about choosing your direction and not asking for permission.
As the track builds, the drums start thumping with confidence, grounding the song while keeping it in forward motion. A harmonica slides in smoothly, adding a rootsy, Americana edge. Cymbals bustle and splash as the chorus hits, and Friend’s voice soars when he declares he’s flying away, not coming down, letting the wind carry him wherever it wants. There’s a freedom in the way his vocals trail off, like he’s already halfway gone.
Lyrically, the song doesn’t sugarcoat time passing either. When he sings about growing old, being missed for a while, and then being moved on from, it lands with quiet honesty rather than bitterness. “Fly Away” is about agency. And as a comeback moment, it sounds exactly like someone finally making the music they’ve been hearing in their head all along.
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Review by: Naomi Joan