Album Review: Charly Bliss – Forever

The Breakdown

It's a glorious outpouring of sugary heartbreak and dizzying lows. Music that the world needs.

It’s been five years since Charly Bliss graced us with an album. Exhausted from touring their second album, it took a while for the band to pick things up and deliver another batch of tracks. The break has done them well, though and with ‘Forever’, they have delivered an album thats fun, fresh and, more importantly, full of some of their best tracks yet.

Track one displays the band’s scratchy guitar disco funk topped by Hendricks’ sweet, sweet vocals. Tragic dazzles in its euro pop that shimmers with jangly guitar chords. It also gives a sense that the band has grown up a little. Experience and growth are evident in both the music and lyrics.

Spawning four singles, including the euphoric pop of ‘Calling You Out’, made for dancefloors and sweaty stages, an album highlight. ‘Nineteen’ was the world’s first glimpse of the album and is a perfect bridge between the band’s older and younger work. It’s a gorgeous building track that highlights Hendricks’s clever lyrical phrasing.

‘Back There Now’ is a synth-led disco freakout with cheerleader backing vocals. I feel that songs like these are what the world needs right now. They’re sugary without being too sweet and poppy yet with a backbone that can only come from solid songwriting.

From the opening piano ballad-like beginnings of ‘How Do You Do It’, Hendricks delivers a powerful performance stretching those vocals as guitarist Spencer Fox bursts in with grungy guitars. Fox’s guitar playing is somewhat the silent hero of this album. From the glittering chords of ‘Tragic’ to the subtle soloing of ‘Calling You Out’ or the beefy rock riffing meets crystal vocals on ‘I’m Not Dead’, Fox’s often less is more approach adds just the right amount to each track.

In fact, the power pop of ‘I’m Not Dead’ is damn near perfection as any band has got. The chunky bass-led groove, which sees the more flamboyant Dan Shure play a more reserved bass line, allows the choruses to have a bigger effect, and again, the band let a euphoria creep into their performance. Absolutely glorious.

‘Here Comes The Darkness’ is a fine example of this band’s darker lyrical themes set to upbeat dancefloor-filling grooves. It’s the same with ‘In Your Bed’, a euphoric heartbreak delivered with pounding drums and synth vocals. The band can do beauty so well with lyrics that many fans can relate to at some point in life. Nostalgia, euphoric, and well-crafted American pop are keywords in this band’s songwriting.

Drummer Sam Hendricks pulls the same trick as Fox. Enhancing the track with clever offbeats and quietly keeping everything rolling nicely. ‘I Don’t Know Anything’ highlights this with a subtle but noticeable drum backing crashing and rolling without overpowering.

‘Waiting For You’ is another standout guitar-led track. Blending synths and stringed instruments is an exciting and vital element of this band. There’s a clinging to youth on parts of this album, and the explosive choruses on tracks like ‘Waiting For You’ are the soundtrack to a bedroom dance party.

Happiness is put a few chords away with ‘Easy To Love You’ and flows through the final track, ‘Last First Kiss,’ where drummer Hendricks rolls his way into sunshine and sax solos. This brings an end to an album that Eve, Sam, Dan, and Spencer should be immensely proud of and one that fans will be spinning for a long time to come.

These songs are so well crafted you could set up a decent audio system with them, such as the clarity of the bass booming lows and the angelic highs. ‘Forever’ is the sound of a revitalised band that shows in this bunch of fresh-sounding, energised tracks that are a joy to listen to. It’s emotionally heavy, but the full weight is counterbalanced by the skillfully crafted pop that goes along with the lyrics and, of course, those vocal pipes of Hendricks.

Check out the track Calling You Out, below: