On Mar. 28., Lucy Dacus released her fourth solo studio album “Forever Is A Feeling.” She announced this album a few months ago along with the announcement of her tour to go along with the album. The roll out for this album has been quite unique including multiple singles as well as a museum tour of acoustic sets and has led to this being one of her most anticipated solo projects.
Lucy Dacus has been performing, releasing music, and collaborating with various artists since around 2016 when she released her debut album “No Burden.” Her most notable collaborative project is with her band, boygenius. This band consists of Dacus and her longtime friends Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers. The three musicians got together in 2018 to create their self-titled debut EP and then took a five-year hiatus before coming back together in 2023 to release their debut album “the record.” The group is once again on hiatus and are taking this time to take a break and expand upon their solo projects.
Dacus, specifically, is taking this time to release this album, which she wrote throughout her time collaborating and being on tour with her bandmates. Because of this, the album is her most lyrically authentic work yet. She touches upon topics such as friendship and falling in love with your best friend.
One notable standout quality that this album has is her choice of introduction song. Dacus is known for starting off her albums with hard-hitting singles, such as “Night Shift” being the first song on “Historian.” However, for this album she went a different direction and opened with “Calliope Prelude,” a simple orchestral introduction that slowly transitions itself into the next song “Big Deal.” This transition left me speechless upon my initial listen and it is still one of my personal favorite moments.
The next two songs on the album are “Ankles” and “Limerence,” which were two singles that Dacus released near the album announcement. The lead single “Ankles,” features both Baker and Bridgers. Despite being released together, these songs are so very different from one another but perfectly encapsulated the overall vibe at the time for the upcoming album.
Up next, is “Modigliani.” This song was the one I was most excited to hear as Dacus’ longtime friend and bandmate Bridgers lent some harmonies on this track. Along with this, Dacus had shared that the content of the song is about her friendship with Bridgers. This song did not disappoint with most notable lyrics being “you can take off a year or two, we’ll all be here when you get back,” which is a nod to Bridgers’ break from the media, and “Modigliani melancholy, got me long in the face,” which is a reference to the famous artist whose work features melancholic long faced portraits.
“Talk” was the final single released just a few weeks before the album and is my personal favorite. It is so unique from anything that Dacus has ever released before with interesting production choices and a heavier tone all throughout. This song takes everything that makes Dacus a standout artist and combines it into one.
The next few songs highlight Dacus’ experience of falling in love. These include the rawness of the all acoustic song “For Keeps,” the title track “Forever Is A Feeling,” “Come Out,” and another single called “Best Guess.”
Following these tracks is Dacus’ first song with an official featured artist. This track is “Bullseye (with Hozier).” The song follows the story of two young people in love and Dacus and Hozier take turns sharing the story before coming together with beautiful harmonies.
The second to last song is the track that many fans were excited for as they knew it would be about Dacus’ now publicly official partner, Julien Baker, and would even feature her voice. This track is very unique compared to most of Dacus’ previous work and seems to take some inspiration from Baker’s newly released country music from her duo project with Torres.
The final song of the album, “Lost Time,” is a perfect closing song. It starts simple and stripped-down with raw and emotional lyrics that bring together all of the themes explored on this album. It then begins to pick up the pace with more instruments being added. Eventually it builds up into a heavy sounding section that is reminiscent of her most popular song “Night Shift.” The intensity of this section eventually breaks down into an even more stripped-down portion that seems almost as if it may be an original voice memo recording from the beginning stages of the song. This format represents the rawness of the love she has found.
Overall, this album is Dacus’ most unique project yet that strays from her norm while still featuring her most recognizable qualities of song writing. Her upcoming tour will feature a large number of these new songs along with many other songs fans know and love.
Nora Lee is a Dakota Student General Reporter. She can be reached at nora.lee@und.edu.