Charly Bliss share new single 'Waiting For You'
Charly Bliss | Photo Credit: Milan Dileo
Early Praise for FOREVER
“['Calling You Out's] perfect chorus will have you reaching for the nearest hairbrush mic." - The Guardian
“The intoxicating rush of Charly Bliss’ power pop continues… Forever pushes Charly Bliss’ strong hooks toward brighter and wide-eyed places.” - Pitchfork
“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
“NYC popsters make the best Carly Rae Jepsen album of 2024. It’s sticky, summery hooks all the way down.” - Bandcamp
“Anyone growing tired of Taylor Swift's increasingly listless songwriting would be wise to switch to Charly Bliss.” - The FADER
“‘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
"A delightful blend of glossy melodies and addictive hooks, showcasing the band’s unique evolution.” - Paste
"The band brings the scorching summer pavements, the furtive glances, the heart-pumping closeness – and the inevitable heartbreak that comes after – to life in bold and booming pop that swings for the fences and clears them by a mile." - Beats Per Minute
Today, Charly Bliss share 'Waiting For You,' the lively and dynamic new single from FOREVER, the band’s highly anticipated new album out August 16 on Lucky Number.
Eva Hendricks calls it "A love song for my bandmates. While I was separated from Sam, Spencer, & Dan during the pandemic, I remember watching videos of us playing shows and thinking “How could I have taken this for granted?” I couldn’t see how beautiful everything really was and how lucky we were. It was agonizing to be apart for that long but helpful, because I don’t think I’ll ever let myself forget that again."
The song comes with a video directed by frequent collaborator Henry Kaplan, of which Hendricks says “the room is full of personal little Charly Bliss Easter eggs. Sam’s daughter’s first school photo, a t-shirt I made with my best friend Amanda at the mall when we were 8 years old, birthday cards, letters, and notes. It had to be personal to match how sentimental the lyrics are, and Henry and the whole team worked so hard to make that possible.”
FOREVER, produced by Jake Luppen (Hippo Campus) and Caleb Wright (Samia) along with the band’s Sam Hendricks, 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.
Charly Bliss is taking their energetic live show on the road in support of FOREVER on a headline tour on North America in the fall. They are also confirmed to appear at Pitchfork London 2024 this November, playing The Garage on Wednesday 6th November. Tickets are available now via the band’s website.
Charly Bliss is Eva Hendricks, Sam Hendricks, Spencer Fox and Dan Shure.
Hear 'Waiting For You' on streaming services here and watch the video below.
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' & '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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