“One of the craziest things about getting older,” Charly Bliss singer Eva Hendricks has said, “is growing away from the things you did when you were young(er) and stupid(er).” Over the band’s past two albums and a handful of EPs, Hendricks has astutely chronicled those young, stupid experiences: falling in love with a jerk, getting dumped on your birthday, running yourself ragged with youthful ambition. Forever, the Brooklyn band’s third album, pulls off an impressive feat: In some of their biggest, most ambitious pop songs, they tap into those moments of emotional overload while infusing them with the sense of perspective that’s gained from growing up a little.
On their first two albums, Charly Bliss balanced sweetness and angst, even as their sound turned from the tightly coiled pop-rock of their debut toward the moody, new-wave synth pop of its follow-up. Hendricks has often mentioned the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack as a key inspiration, and there’s more than a little Letters to Cleo and the Breeders in Charly Bliss’ DNA. Forever doesn’t sacrifice grit but a bold, bright pop sound dominates. The serrated guitars of “I Don’t Know Anything” and “I’m Not Dead” are a throughline to the band’s indie-rock roots. But squint, and the sparkling “Back There Now” and slow-burning “Here Comes the Darkness” aren’t far off from Carly Rae Jepsen B-sides; the chorus of the explosive “Calling You Out” aims for stadium rafters. Hendricks’ self-examination, too, is heightened—and alongside self-incriminating songs about delusional crushes (“Tragic”) and picking senseless fights with your lover (“Calling You Out”), there are odes to the joys of new love (“Last First Kiss”) and even to the love shared among her bandmates (“Waiting For You”).
Hendricks is perhaps funniest when singing about approaching adulthood while being a touring indie musician. On “I Don’t Know Anything,” she wonders what it means to sell out, about whether “as ’90s rock revivalists/We’re just too late.” It’s not exactly a ubiquitous problem, but she knows how to make it universal: When she sings, “You bet on yourself and you lose every day,” it might resonate with any strivers and dreamers staring down a potential global recession, not just the ones waiting on measly Spotify payouts. On the swaying “I’m Not Dead,” Hendricks sings jealously of her boyfriend’s septuagenarian dad: “His life’s more fun and more fulfilling than mine,” she sighs. “If I’m a rockstar, I’m not doing it right.” But she turns hopeful in the chorus, as the whole band cranks up a classic loud-quiet dynamic to cathartic effect. Maybe at the end, she’ll wish she’d “fucked up at least twice as much and had like double the fun”—but hey, as the song’s title argues, at least we’ve still got time.
