Forever in Bloomington, MN

Following the release of their sophomore album,
Young Enough
, and related touring in 2019,
Charly Bliss
needed a break and got one just in time for the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lead singer
Eva Hendricks
relocated to Australia, and they took their time writing and working on their third album remotely. They released a handful of singles and starting touring again in earnest in 2022 and 2023, and recorded the resulting
FOREVER
, their first album in five years, with
Jake Luppen
(
Hippo Campus
),
Caleb Wright
Samia
), and
drummer
Sam Hendricks
Eva
's brother) producing. While the songs grapple with the doubt, change, waves of gratitude, and personal heartache of the time, the band had a mandate in place for the album that the tracks had to be fun. While
remain tethered to the brighter pop-punk and grunge-pop of bygone decades, they continue in the poppier direction of the album's predecessor, even employing throbby synth bass on songs like "Calling You Out" and programmed beats on the bloopy opening track "Tragic," a midtempo effort that anticipates the end of a relationship that hasn't really gotten going yet. Likewise conflicted, before the dancy "Back There Now" reaches its sparkling, chant-injected chorus, it opens with the line "When you say you miss me, are you thinking of someone else?"
continues in similarly apprehensive fashion through songs that, for the most part, bubble, sparkle, and pulse, with the exception of a couple stripped-back ballads ("Nineteen," "Easy to Love You"), which also happen to be among the record's most affectionate entries. More than one song comments on life as a musician, including "Waiting for You," which
has referred to as a love song to her bandmates written while isolated.
ends on "Last First Kiss," an anthem for the hope of a forever partner. The combination of bright, '80s artifice, '90s cynicism, and 2020s uncertainty here works, if the "fun" is often tinged with consternation. ~ Marcy Donelson