Charly Bliss share new single 'Back There Now'
Charly Bliss | Photo Credit: Milan Dileo
Early Praise Charly Bliss and new album FOREVER
“NYC popsters make the best Carly Rae Jepsen album of 2024. It’s sticky, summery hooks all the way down.” - Bandcamp
"almighty guitar pop" - DIY ★★★★
“A bittersweet sugar-rush filled with power-pop gems” – Dork ★★★★
“Anyone growing tired of Taylor Swift's increasingly listless songwriting would be wise to switch to Charly Bliss.” - The FADER
"['Calling You Out's] perfect chorus will have you reaching for the nearest hairbrush mic." - The Guardian
“Worthy of a placement on The O.C. back in the early 2000s… In its indie-rock days, Charly Bliss could capture youthful desperation with a squeaky spunk, but as the band's moved toward pop, so, too, has its introspection deepened.” - NPR
“Everything on the record, from the emo vocal delivery of I Don’t Know Anything to just about forgivably cheesy closer Last First Kiss, is delivered with high-stakes levels of emotion, willing to put it all out there.” – The Observer ★★★★
"A delightful blend of glossy melodies and addictive hooks, showcasing the band’s unique evolution.” - Paste
“The intoxicating rush of Charly Bliss’ power pop continues… Forever pushes Charly Bliss’ strong hooks toward brighter and wide-eyed places.” - Pitchfork
“‘Nineteen’ is a power ballad of the highest order, complete with a saxophone solo and the complex nostalgia that can still strike years after a broken heart” - Rolling Stone
Charly Bliss release 'Back There Now,' the jaunty final single from their anticipated new album FOREVER, out this Friday on Lucky Number. The song arrives with a tongue-in-cheek video directed by the band’s Dan Shure.
“One of the craziest things about getting older is growing away from the things you did when you were young(er) and stupid(er). But then I’ll read something or hear a song that takes me right back to the dramatic insanity of my early twenties love life, and I’m forced to acknowledge the freaky glutton for pain and heartache who’s still somewhere inside of me no matter how deeply I’ve buried her," Eva Hendricks says of the song.
FOREVER is full of the band’s biggest, brightest power pop yet, but it’s an evolution, not a departure. FOREVER crams a lifetime of feeling, decades of friendship, and years of craft into a batch of sonically tight but emotionally vast songs that activate the pleasure centres in your brain. The songs shimmer and burst, the way fireworks look like they should sound, as exemplified by the album’s previous singles 'Nineteen,' 'Waiting For You' and 'Calling You Out.' Of the record, the band says it "celebrates the big love between the four of us and the life we’ve fought for and built together. The lyrics are head over heels, overflowing with romantic love, friend love, crushes and the hurricanes of feeling that accompany all the massive shifts of growing up. We fell back in love with making music through this record, and you can hear it."
Charly Bliss is taking their energetic live show, which Pitchfork recently called “a giddy, heart-racing time,” on the road in support of FOREVER on a headline tour on North America in the autumn, including a stop at Pitchfork London in November. Tickets are available now via the band’s website.
Charly Bliss is Eva Hendricks, Sam Hendricks, Spencer Fox and Dan Shure.
Hear 'Back There Now' on streaming services here and watch the video below.
Dan Shure on the 'Back There Now' video: “What originally began as us trying to make a cool video with limited budget, became a sort of deeper meta video about that exact situation. We’re SERVING expensive-looking pop video, but then at the end the facade crumbles. People sometimes think that indie musicians are rich and famous when, in reality, the members of Charly Bliss all have other jobs to support ourselves. In the video you see us on these various modes of transportation and you're not quite sure what the destination is… but we’re moving! This video was SO fun to direct as a member of the band because we got to both make fun of these tropes of expensive pop videos, while also kind of living that fantasy. It feels very Charly Bliss to me!”
More about new album Forever
When Charly Bliss sat down to write new music, they started with a simple directive: “It has to be fun.” When the writing process began in 2020, the world was in the midst of, among other things, a fun deficit, the kind of endorphin drought that only a new Charly Bliss record could remedy. “Fun is our natural state,” says guitarist Spencer Fox. “No one has more fun than us and no one loves each other more than us.” On the road, the quartet spends all their time together “giggling and being stupid.” Not surprising from a band made up of lifelong friends, including a pair of siblings. Eva describes the bond with her bandmates as “the biggest relationship of her life.”
Still, the rigorous experience of recording, releasing, and touring their second album, 2019’s Young Enough, left the band feeling creatively overcooked, the result of wanting everything about the record and shows to be perfect. It’s a feeling they were intent on shedding as they commenced work on their third LP. A pair of non-album singles ('I Need a New Boyfriend,' 'You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore') released last year had the band and their fans primed for a new full-length album.
While working on previous albums, Charly Bliss had done their songwriting in a room together. But the Forever writing sessions began with Eva halfway across the planet in Australia. Ironically, the remote writing process brought the bandmates closer than ever. With no deadlines to hit or tour dates on the books, Fox, Shure, and the two Hendrices (pluralized like “matrix”) took their time generating new songs. With no ticking clock, the band felt free to explore and experiment.
Eva recorded demos on her phone while sitting in a parked rental car. Several time zones away, Sam jotted down ideas in the middle of the night. Unsurprisingly, the record is suffused with a sense of sleeplessness. The jittery feeling of new love. The raw insomnia brought on by heartache. The late nights spent out (or in) with friends new and old. The full-body cringe of remembering who you used to be and learning how to love that person. You know, the kind of big feelings that make it hard to shut your brain off. Front to back, the album plays like a love letter to love letters. It was all made possible by the band giving itself space to breathe, for the individuals who make up Charly Bliss to grow together despite the distance between them.
Watch videos for previously released singles
'Nineteen' / 'Calling You Out' / 'Waiting For You'
Charly Bliss - Forever album tracklisting
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
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