There is something rather appealing about a band that suggests the answer to life’s many questions might be to slow down, stay in and enjoy the moment. Portland, Maine‘s indie-synth-pop outfit, Forget, Forget, seem to have arrived at precisely that conclusion with what should we do today?, their third full-length album and a record eight years in the making. It is a place where old-school analogue warmth and digital dexterity blend into something approaching alt-pop perfection, driven by rhythms, lush harmonies, and expansive textures.
I particularly love the message behind opener staying in, a song recognising how traditional ideas of living, socialising, and spending our precious leisure time are changing. Even the fear-of-missing-out mentality that once seemed to dictate our every weekend is giving way to something altogether more comfortable: a desire to nest, retreat and enjoy our own company. This is more than a musical equivalent of Netflix and chill; perhaps it is the logical next step, and a mission statement for a new way of living, delivered over infectiously groovy pop-rock vibes.
If I knew how takes a darker turn, a brooding, pulsing pop piece that blends eighties echoes with more cutting-edge dancefloor sensibilities. Chilled but sonically restless, it brings together pulsing bass lines, skittering guitars and an irresistible rhythmic undercurrent. Dark and delicious yet driven and deftly done.
If I understand socialize like a butterfly, hibernate like a bee correctly (great title, by the way), it reinforces the album’s life-lived-on-our-own-terms philosophy: a shimmering confection of gorgeous vocal layers and the distant call of a muted trumpet. It manages to be both groovesome and graceful, while standby rounds things off in a cloud of ambience and ethereality, the sound of an album gently fading away rather than demanding a grand finale.
So much modern music seems caught in a perpetual cycle of hyperbole and histrionics, with influencers and self-appointed arbiters of cool insisting we should always be out there, being seen, being someone and being somewhere. Forget, Forget offers a rather more attractive alternative. Never has an album made me want to turn up the heating, settle down with a significant other – or, in my case, a cat and a good book – and spend Saturday night entirely on my own terms.
Forget, Forget are my sort of people.