New York power poppers Charly Bliss, fronted by the ever-excellent Eva Hendricks, return with a new batch of songs that are equal parts joy and heartbreak. The new album, Forever, is like a rollercoaster ride of feelings and emotions that you won’t want to get off, you’ll just want to ride it over and over and scream along. As Hendricks herself puts it, they’re aiming to “destroy you...but in a fun way.”

It’s been five years since their critically acclaimed 2019 album Young Enough, and it was worth the wait because Forever might just be their their biggest, brightest, and most ambitious album yet. It really shows off the band’s growth, packing decades of friendship and years of playing music together into a set of power pop anthems that hit hard whether you’re singing along at a live show or alone in your bedroom. The album’s first single, “Nineteen,” perfectly captures the essence of Forever, it’s a hurricane of heartbreak, the kind of love song that bashes you against the rocks just as much as it lifts you up on waves of manic joy. “I’ll always be fascinated by love and relationships that don’t quite work and bring tsunamis of heartbreak,” Hendricks reflects. “First love is crazy.”

The making of Forever coincided with a period of intense change for the band members – Hendricks’ move to Australia, her brother Sam’s discovery that he was going to be a father, and the countless moves, love stories, and life upheavals that come with adulthood. But through all the chaos, the band has remained a constant, a thread that ties their lives together. And the album brims with that passion and excitement, the kind that comes from rediscovering the joy of making music with one another. Forever is an invite to a special party, an invite to lose yourself in the music and feel every beat and every lyric as if it were your own story.