GutterPutter

Lucy Dacus is one of the forefront singer-songwriters in indie folk at the time of writing. Originally from Virginia, she moved to Pennsylvania where she recorded her most commercially successful album Home Video in 2022 before moving to California. Three previous albums done under her name were met with positive responses from critics and a loyal fandom. Only a few years ago, she was a part of the much-hyped supergroup boygenius whose sole project The Record netted several big awards at the 66th Grammy and perfect ratings from NME and Rolling Stone. At the time of writing, the band had gone into an indefinite hiatus although all three members have shown clear eagerness to continue on in the future.

Forever is a Feeling is Dacus’s fourth album and recent news surrounding her personal life helps to recontextualise a lot of the music within it. Her made-public relationship with ex-boygenius bandmate Julien Baker highlights the personal intimacy that drives the trackset which gets further strengthened by the more baroque instrumentation. ‘Ankles’ has a genuinely catchy chorus with a sensual undertone, fuelled by the cellos and a scintillating guitar strum that would bring into mind the certain Chappel Roan. A more bittersweet alternative in ‘Bullseye’ has a featured vocal performance from Hozier whose deep register backs the more stripped-backed acoustic guitar in highlighting the end of young love. Lastly, in a true lyricist fashion, Dacus has a handful of quotables that begs to be etched into someone’s arm as a tattoo. Take the vividity of ‘Big Deal’ in showing the realisation of admitting your love after the time for it had passed: “Flicking embers into daffodils / You didn’t plan to tell me how you feel / You laugh about like it’s no big deal / Crush the fire underneath your heel”.

As sincere as the feeling is, it doesn’t exactly deter much of the issues that plagues it. I can’t say that I’m a full-on stan for either one of the trio in boygenius. The closest would perhaps be Phoebe Bridgers for context (even that pales in terms with lyricism compared to Laura Marling, Adrianne Lenker, Vashti Bunyan for the past, Silvia Pérez Cruz outside of the English language). However, there is something about Dacus that I personally find “overrated” which is a unpleasant enough descriptor. To clarify, I feel that while she has her way with words as proven by the aforementioned extract, she struggles to push that to its fullest potential. When your preferred genre overlaps already with a lot of other talented singer-songwriters, your instrumentals are not out of the blue, and you happen to not push your writing to its fullest potential, the cracks will become apparent.

To start off, there’s a line in ‘Limerence’ where, despite the theme being on the titular long-term unrequited feelings, Dacus rambles about a person “playing GTA”. You’d hoped that there’s something metaphorical about the mention, be it its frequent flirtations with controversy or the messy love life that derived from being a career criminal. There’s none. It’s there solely to show how stoned she is from smoking weed at best. Worst, it’s a standout in the sense that it’s weird as the rest of the lyrics in the song comes off as being evocative without capturing the spirit of desire. 

The blandness of the general songwriting haunts a lot of the tracks as, on repeated listens, you may notice that there’s little variety to be found. The tracks largely follow your standard verse-chorus-verse structure barring any slow instrumental solo (ignoring the intro ‘Calliope Prelude’) which risks the prospect of them blending in. You may find that a lot of the lines there are third-rate poetry and that more literary fans are better off reading Elliott Smith’s or William Shakespeare’s for a good example on how to express your love.

‘Talk’ is supposed to be about trying to end a relationship that is complicated by a one-sided sexual interest, yet the delivery feels boring. The whistles and the boosted drumming does little to elevate the lacklustre presentation of the moment with awkward comparisons to the Grim Reaper and hollow use of repetitions in the chorus. The title track has a very questionable rhyme in its chorus and a bad use of semantic field relating to road trips. Not helping as well is the whiplash between the upbeat tempo in the verse compared to the abrupt sluggishness of the chorus. ‘Best Guess’ somehow manages to usurp much of the others in being a disappointment through its sheer levels of genericness. Queer as it is, there’s nothing about it that comes off as iconic in a way that makes you want to treasure a line to remember your partner by.

The lyricism might not be even good which is a big problem as it’s a main selling point, but the small bits of deviations found are decent enough to excuse its shortcomings. ‘Modigliani’ feels like there’s a confusing bit of stream-of-consciousness being made between homesickness and personal life problems. The silver lining is that there are some solid vibratos being found from Dacus’s singing which makes for some pleasant bits of melody. ‘Come Out’ is filled with weird figures of speeches made as declarations of love, but the guitar and the harp is at full display which distracts you from noticing a lot of it. ‘For Keeps’ is the shortest song with only two verses and a bridge. It’s essentially a Bread song which will either win over oldheads or haters of sappy soft rock. I lean towards the latter.

After the two bits of tweeness in ‘Most Wanted Man’ and ‘Lost Time’, Forever is a Feeling wears itself out as a novelty. While the instrumentations are pleasant and the production clear, it fails to elevate the weak songwriting of Dacus. The images evoked are cringey, the themes explored are more often said than felt, and the literary intent is much more often misplaced. I don’t doubt that she poured her emotions into the album. It just so happens to be very unfortunate that the quality checks are missing. Her big fandom will likely contain those who would consider this a feast. As for others, they are more likely disappointed at the relative hollowness from the poor execution. Can Dacus rebound? It’s not out of the cards but a dud like this would leave some to find more reliable lyricists.

1.9/5