Forever Is A Feeling

The album as a whole is tender and affectionate, seeming to accept and appreciate even the awkward and unrequited as part of her embrace of complexity and queerness.

Yes, she is doing things a little differently with more expansive musical arrangements and more specific lyrics. In the end, though, Forever Is a Feeling is the next step forward from an artist who continues to discover who she is, and what kind of music she wants to make, which is the sort of journey that hopefully will last for her entire career.

While the music is great and her vocals impressive, her knack for writing unforgettable lyrics is still the most charming thing about her music.

Forever Is A Feeling is layered, lush and contemplative. [May 2025, p.86]

“Best Guess” might be the most hopeful song she’s done yet. .... “Most Wanted” is the album’s only guitar rocker, and easily its most urgent track sonically, a Byrds-style rave where she’s on a mission “to catch the Most Wanted Man in West Tennessee.” It’s full of electric sexual tension, with her most breathless vocals.

Though longing and mortality have long been recurring themes in Dacus’ music, the stakes feel even higher – and even more gripping – when there’s so much to lose.

That’s not to say that Forever Is A Feeling isn’t a lovely listen in its own right—it just never quite reaches the heights of Dacus’ past, thornier works.

Forever Is a Feeling is the culmination in the drift away from indie rock she has made since Historian, offering a record full of gleaming pop gems with the tender touch of a plaintive singer/songwriter.

Melodic beauty at times gives way to oversweet twinkling, but "Modigliani" and "Most Wanted Man" are winners. [May 2025, p.29]

Despite its flaws, it’s still an album that contains some of Dacus’ best work to date, even if the record itself is not her strongest. If you’re having withdrawal symptoms while waiting for the inevitable second Boygenius album, Forever Is A Feeling should sate you somewhat.

It’s her most subdued and intimate effort to date, an examination of how, when you’re in love, everyday banalities can be alternately exhilarating and unbearable. .... But with a few notable exceptions, like the pulsating cello-rock rhythm of “Ankles” and the ethereal synth swirl of the title track, the album doesn’t really expand Dacus’s musical palette.

Forever Is a Feeling turns the most transcendent, hopeful, horny moments of a young lover’s life into maddeningly safe background music. It’s so frustrating, you could scream.

Those who invest in their fave singers’ personal lives will no doubt enjoy digging deep into the lyrics. Those who fell in love with the epics and wigouts of 2018’s Historian may find engaging moments on an album too cohesive for its own good.

It's to Dacus's credit that Forever is a Feeling still feels grounded in the same raw emotions and subtle details that have rightly made her a star. That said, there is a certain amount of playing it safe.

There are songs with beautiful melodies here, and they occur most often when Dacus leans towards Broadway for inspiration, a style that suits her deep voice: there is a distinct show tune air to Limerence, the most musically striking song here. More often, they settle for being perfectly nice rather than particularly arresting: nothing really grabs you, a state of affairs compounded by the album’s unobtrusive sound