You need to listen to the searing noise pop album Forever in Your Heart
There’s something compelling about music that makes it feel like it’s falling apart. The Black Robes are masters of barely contained chaos. All of their records feel like they’re in danger of collapsing into pure noise at any moment. But never have they so deftly weaved the different threads of their sound – glitchy percussion, pounding guitars, irresistible pop hooks – together as they do on Forever in your heart.
The Canadian duo of Ada Rook and Devi McCallion create something undeniably catchy out of abrasive electronics, metallic percussion, death metal screams and off-key warbles. The opening track, “PEACESIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” jumps out of the speakers with such nastiness that the riff trips over itself before settling into a groovey shoegaze verse. When the riff returns, Devi shouts, “Can we make something beautiful without hope?”
Rook and Devi’s screams are explosive, but nowhere is this more true than on “Silver Bells.” Halfway through the song, after a particularly melodic passage supported by Pretty Hate Machine-style synths, Rook tears his vocal chords, delivering the lines:
I’m tired
I’m out of breath
I’m afraid of everything that’s left
I just want a little sweetness
But the tension and the despair
That’s all we get
The performance is so intense that Devi steps in to make sure her friend is okay. It’s a moment of levity in an album that can often feel dark. But it also probably grew out of genuine concern for Ada’s larynx.
“Silver Bells” gives way to the glitchy mid-tempo “Ragequitted” and the lo-fi indie-rock tinged “Waiting42morrow,” which provide a respite before the slow build of “Gone in an Instant,” which climaxes with more vocal histrionics from Rook.
Lyrically, the album is filled with feelings of alienation and self-loathing. People who don’t “even remember she was in their lives” and Rook states that “I wish I was a fake, so people would hate the fake me.” Heavy themes might feel clunky in less capable hands. But lyrics exploring the pressures they face as trans women are balanced by moments of hope. At the end of “Heaven,” Rook discovers beauty and recognizes that there is a way out of the darkness.
And all broken creatures are
Perfect as they are
But it’s easy to be disappointed
When you don’t know who you are
And the album even ends on a vaguely positive note as Devi intones “I couldn’t keep it together, but it’s not that bad” at the end of the almost power ballad “(Can’t) Keep It Together.”
The production throughout the record is also impeccable. Musically, we rarely get bored. Kick drums explode with enough force to send shivers down your spine even with headphones on, glitchy synths dance in and out of the mix, and guitars come alive in unexpected places. The chaos extends not only to the sonic palette but also to the arrangements of the songs themselves. Although there are obvious hooks, Black Dresses doesn’t seem particularly interested in standard verse-chorus-verse song structures.
