Charly Bliss

NYC and Australia-based power-pop band, Charly Bliss are made up of the Hendricks siblings Eva (lead vocals, guitar) and Sam (drums) along with Spencer Fox (lead guitar) and Dan Shure (bass). Five years since the release of their last album ‘Young Enough, Charly Bliss are back with their third studio album, ‘Forever’.

Formed in 2011, Charly Bliss released Soft Serve EP (2014) and a trio of non-album singles to promote their pop-tinged alternative rock sound. After successfully working hard to secure fans and being championed by the music press (Stereogum christened them one of their “Bands to watch” in 2016), Charly Bliss released their debut album ‘Guppy’ (2017). Hitting on grunge and alt-pop nostalgia, it was unanimously acclaimed and featured prominently on a number of best album year-end lists.

They quickly followed this with, their second album, Young Enough (2019). Decisively more pop and polished, they were glossy and shimmery in all the right ways, yet still alternative with their distinctive rockier sensibilities in-tact.

Half a decade later, we have been teased with a series of singles over the summer – a heartaching ballad ‘Nineteen’, pulsating pop hit ‘Calling You Out’, playfully punky ‘Waiting For You’ and fizzy synth anthem ‘Back There Now’.

These singles do a great job indicating what ‘Forever’ has in store for us musically. As soon as the album opens with ‘Tragic’, we are hit with an electro-pop song layered with lush guitars and synth beats. Having tapped into nostalgia on every album they have recorded and released, we find ‘Forever’ has honed into 80’s synth-pop to create songs like ‘Calling You Out’, ‘Back There Now’ and ‘Waiting For You’ with Carly Rae Jepsen levels of contagion.

With the help of Lee Tran (saxophone) adding romantically stirring touches on heartfelt tracks ‘Nineteen’ and ‘Last First Kiss’ (the latter closing the album with epic flair), there is more to ‘Forever’ than just infectious pop songs. Throughout the record, we hear tender and emotively charged tracks like ‘In Your Bed’ and ‘I’m Not Dead’ peppered around tracks about angst and frustration. ‘How Do You Do It’ is about the pains of love / “love is disillusion” and ‘I Don’t Know Anything’ leans into their heavier and punk-rock origins. On ‘Here Comes The Darkness’, Eva’s lyrics echo that of self-effacing Swedish pop singer Robyn as we find ourselves immersed in darkly dreamy alternative-pop.

Their penultimate track has Charly Bliss deliver the gorgeously gentle and precious, ‘Easy To Love You’. Stripped-back and acoustic, we are caught by how heart-rendering the song is. Eva’s vocals are overflowing with sincerity, as they soar to breaking point. As one of the dazzling stand-out tracks extracted from this album and, we can safely say, ‘Forever’ is a pop gold mine!

Tracklist:
1. Tragic
2. Calling You Out
3. Back There Now
4. Nineteen
5. In Your Bed
6. I’m Not Dead
7. How Do You Do It
8. I Don’t Know Anything
9. Here Comes The Darkness
10. Waiting For You
11. Easy To Love You
12. Last First Kiss