Lucy Dacus’ fourth album Forever Is A Feeling – and first since her supergroup boygenius went on indefinite hiatus – does a brilliant job of blending lush arrangements into her own, well-established Indie Rock/Pop musical style. Throughout the record, Dacus brings in a slew of collaborators, including her boygenius bandmates Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker, along with Hozier, Blake Mills, and several others.
The record begins with “Calliope Prelude,” a beautiful instrumental clocking in just over a minute that gives a not-so-subtle nod toward what’s to follow. Across a dozen tracks, Dacus’ emotive vocals soar over the lush soundscapes. The cello on a song like “Ankles,” the album’s first single, offers an almost ominous urgency to her now trademark confessional lyrics. The strings and piano are masterfully weaved throughout “Limerence,” elevating the song significantly and deftly showing off Dacus’ effortless vocals. With her voice slipping into moments of speak/singing (here and on other tracks), she sounds a bit like Rufus Wainwright in her ability to make a song sound both operatic and pop at the same time. And while the music is great and her vocals impressive, her knack for writing unforgettable lyrics is still the most charming thing about her music. On “For Keeps,” for example, she sings, “If the devil is in the detail than god is in the gap in your teeth/You are doing the Lord’s work every time that you smile at me.” It’s stunning the way she can be conservative with her word choice, while also cramming so much emotion into those two sentences.
The bulk of this record was written between the fall of 2022 and the summer of 2024. A particularly emotional time, according to Dacus. “I got kicked in the head with emotions. Falling in love, falling out of love,” she says. “You have to destroy things in order to create things. And I did destroy a really beautiful life.”
The record closes on “Last Time,” a track where Dacus is backed by little more than an acoustic guitar and despite the melancholy sound of the song, it comes off as hopeful thanks to her confessions of love throughout. The song is a perfect bookend to the record, a confessional track crammed with emotions offering cautious optimism of what can be.
