It’s a tough to summarize Forever Unclean in a neat little genre-name. It’s punk rock, but with elements of ‘90s alt rock, screamo and more. It’s short and concise, energetic and uplifting, yet unpredictable and far more complex than your average 3-chord beentheredonethat. The music is driving but varied: guitar-driven with sing-shouted vocals and lots of surprising-but-not-jarring shifts along the way.
I feel like the refrain in “Broken” is as good a place to start as anywhere: “We were running down the hill/ and our legs are broken now.”
The song is memorable and easy to decipher during the big singalong moment. But it’s also complex. Not many choruses take the form of a full sentence, not to mention one that oozes dramatic and graphic symbolism. Take this idea as a small sample of the entire 11-song record. It’s accessible but with more than a catchy chorus. It’s punk for guitar fans.
Fortunately, while there is a lot going on, Forever Unclean manages consistency. It takes the intriguing musical range of screamo without the abrupt shifts which made that style the equivalent of a musical headache. I feel like screamo (intentionally) leaves the listener bloody and bruised at the end. Best lifts you up and, despite the tension throughout, ultimately leaves you with a feeling of relief at the end.
Best is both an emotional and sonic journey. Sometimes it reflects inward, sometimes it soars in triumph and sometimes it punches and claws through the turmoil. It covers all this ground while staying rooted in chord-driven, singalong punk sounds, using a lot of vocal and guitar flourishes along the way. This may be a stretch, but it reminds me of Refused in how it’s clearly one style but incorporates many. A big part of this comes through the vocals. While I’d call it guitar rock, it works because the vocals keep up with that big lead, instead of falling back on gang vocals and power chords like most punk bands.
It’s almost surprising to look back and see that the longest songs are only two and a half minutes because if the band were to write out a proper score, I suspect this record would look twice as long on paper.
Released on Hidden Home (USA), Disconnect Disconnect (UK), and Nasty Cut Records (EU).
