Brian Eno – Foreverandevernomore (2022)

Brian Eno – Foreverandevernomore

Ambient Brian Eno fans and art rock Brian Eno fans have historically come together on Another Green World, the album that combined his earlier experimental rock with a notable shift towards minimalism. Eno would of course push much further and become more noted for his ambient work, but over the years, he’s made sure to dabble in one-off projects sampling collaborations with Underworld’s Karl Hyde, U2 as Passengers, and John Cale. All that behind said, Another Green World is still Eno’s highwater mark, and he does his best to capture that magic on Foreverandevermore.

This is Eno’s first album in almost twenty years to heavily feature vocals on every track. Like Another Green World, it doesn’t detract from the moody and ethereal soundscapes that guide each song, instead, Eno’s vocals act as theatric punctuation, underlining moments and giving the windswept effects a lyrical purpose. “We Let It In” and “There Were Bells” both sum up Eno’s uneasiness with the growing threat of climate change and disregard for its resolution and the former even features daughter Darla’s vocal accompaniment for added weight. In fact, “There Were Bells” is the studio version of a track Eno debuted with his brother Roger at the Acropolis last year, one of the few times he’s played live in his later career. It takes on a menacing and foreboding aura, one that grips the listener with its stoic persistence.

As the album continues, it weaves between ambience and art rock but in ways that are always illusively palatable. The micro-melodies strung together over the run time are slowly revealed, and given the sparse, unforgiving atmosphere of the record, become that much more effective once they announce themselves. As an album from a constantly evolving musician, one who is often as confounding as he is exploratory, Foreverandevermore is approachable in its bleak outlook. Eno captures the sound most definitive to himself, evokes his best work in the process, and manages to weave something of a concept album into the mix, which makes it one of his most fulfilling albums of the new millennium.

~8.5

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