Forever Forever: Good Light In
(Self Released)
East London quartet Forever Forever release their debut EP, Good Light In. The six track EP showcases the band’s adept feel for crafting intricate musicality with a genuine sense of emotional sincerity through dappled electronics, mixed with and some beautiful organic instrumentation.
Produced by Jasper Trim (Finnegan Tui, A K Patterson) and band member Fionn Connolly (also known for his work with Modern Liv and George Bone), before being mastered by Nick Powell (Arlo Parks, Loyle Carner), the release demonstrates the band’s capacity for both nuance and grandeur, from moments of stripped intimacy to others of cinematic width.
Opening with the glitching layers of samples and synths on the EP’s intro, playfully titled Skip Intro, the band open with a track as comparable to the soundscaping found on Bon Iver’s 22, A Million as it is to an intro that could be found on an album from The 1975. The opener bubbles gradually into the lo-fi electronic drums and twinkling arpeggiators of Good Light In as the organic and warming fingerpicked acoustic guitar enters.
The EP’s title track sets the tone with a warming melancholy, bringing a pop accessibility fuzzed by the alternative flair of the production choices: subtle vocoders, vocal resampling, and spacious reverbs. The track soon reaches a cinematic and euphoric chorus which changes the tone, surrounded by beautifully placed harmonies. At the track’s close, it reaches a climactic guitar solo before delivering a resilient final iteration of the surprisingly catchy chorus.
Statis brings a beautifully nuanced soundscape of crunchy layers of sampling to create a bright synth pad and warming harmony-heavy vocals that form a sound which, despite its stripped feel, evokes a maximalist approach to production once you scratch the surface. As the track grows through its reverb-drenched pre-chorus, it reaches a stylistically punchy and cinematic chorus, a signature of the band’s songwriting found throughout the EP. As the song continues to grow through its intricate instrumental arrangement, it reaches an a cappella final section, as the quartet layer their flawless vocal melodies before punching in with one final burst of the theatrical, evocative chorus.
Elsewhere across the EP, Difficult Feelings offers a more stripped approach, pairing emotionally attuned vocals with strummed acoustic guitar and minimal atmospheric electronics to create one of the most emotionally impactful moments on the record. Continuing this theme, the stunning piano work of Navigate swells under the repeated motif and vocal sample “the same, the same, the same” — one of the small callbacks throughout the EP which ties the body of work together beautifully and highlights the restless creativity that gives the project its grand and musically invested feel. This is a body of work the band have fully thrown themselves into: a project shaped by time, precision, and care, resulting in music where you can truly hear the hours behind every sound.
Navigate is, for me, the EP’s highlight, beautifully balancing the depth of production found across the rest of the record but with a more controlled restraint that allows the melodies and emotional impact to fully flourish in a manner comparable to SOHN. As the track grows through distant brass and repitched vocals, it swells into a second verse where buoyant bass, subtle guitar work, and punchy drums pull the track forward with purpose before ending in a beautifully layered chorus of brass and choral-like vocals.
Closing with Hung Me Out To Dry, the band deliver one last swell of glittering alt-pop, hammering home their emotive and affecting melodic stylings before closing the EP with a fuzzy ball of driving drums, sawing synths, and virtuoso bluesy guitar work, ending the record in a fleetingly euphoric and climactic manner, much like they would a live show.
Good Light In captures a band in full creative motion, exploring emotion through texture, and precision through playfulness. Across the 6 tracks, the band balances intimacy and grandeur, organic warmth and digital experimentation, crafting a sound that feels both deeply personal and ambitiously cinematic. It’s a confident, colourful, immersive, heartfelt and beautifully executed body of work that lingers long after it ends.
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All words by Simon Lucas-Hughes. More writing by Simon Lucas-Hughes can be found at his author’s archive.
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