Album Review: Best by Forever Unclean

We’ve been following the work of Danish indie skate punk trio Forever Unclean since the release of their first EP, Shreds, back in 2015. Since then, it’s been absolutely amazing seeing the band grow with each release. Not only has each release been better than the last, they’ve also continued to build a following each time they’ve made their way to the UK to play some shows. Seeing them play to a packed New Cross Inn for Do It Together Fest in early 2020 was one of my highlights of the entire weekend. Something has been missing though and that was a full length release from the band. On New Year’s Day that was finally remedied when the band, with the support of Disconnect Disconnect Records, Hidden Home Records and Nasty Cut Records, released Best. I’d been eagerly awaiting the release for months after drummer Leo mentioned a full length was coming when he appeared on the CPRW Podcast. It then took me forever to get around to reviewing it because sometimes I’m slow. Here it is though, my review of Best.

Looking at the tracklist before hitting play, it’s nice to see Forever Unclean sticking with their tradition of short, one word track names. Best begins with Dream. Dream starts with just some guitar and Lasse’s familiar vocals before the entire band comes in. The song is about the realities of going on tour and how, despite it seeming like you’re living out on your dreams, it can be very hard on you mentally. A solid start to the album. Persona was one of the songs that was released as a single before Best’s release. Persona is about learning that it’s okay to be the person you are and not feeling like you have to be somebody else. I really liked the crunch that the opening guitars had before flowing into the usual Forever Unclean sound. There are moments during the song where Lasse’s vocals sound at their most strained which adds a lot of anguish to the song. Rules is just thirty-three seconds – which is short even by Forever Unclean standards. During the track, Lasse asks many questions about dealing with a social situation and not knowing how to act. Despite the short song length the band manage to pack a lot in, which is impressive.

The fourth song is named Crowds. The song continues with the theme of struggling to be yourself and not knowing how to conduct yourself in a social situation. I really liked the line “and it seems like such a waste of breath, to berate my ceiling.” This creates such a good image of laying in your bed with your mind running through your day and over-thinking all the things you should have done or said. I also enjoyed the “ba ba ba ba” section which will unite a crowd in singing along. Woods was another song that was picked as a single. The track starts slowly before the vocals come in and the song explodes into life. This slower moment is great, giving you a short rest after what, so far, has been a pretty relentless album. Once again, the lyrics do a wonderful job of painting a picture. On this occasion it’s the band and their friends when they were younger going off into the woods with their guitars and having a wonderful time. As the song goes on, there becomes a bit of a divide between the friends with one half wanting to have fun forever and the others thinking that they can’t live like that forever. This is a thing that happens in most friendship groups, so a lot of people will be able to relate to the song. The sixth song, Mandy, sadly isn’t a Barry Manilow cover. It is, however, a nice love song about how spending time with that special someone is a great escape from the horror that can be life. This is a super catchy song that you’ll pick up in no time – I’m certain it will get great reactions from live crowds whenever the band play it. Scars, another single released in the album’s build up, is another short song that manages to pack a lot into its duration. It’s a song of two halves. The first is just Lasse and his guitar and the second is the full band. I like the effect that is seemingly created by Lasse standing a bit further away from the microphone in the recording. It has the great live feeling to it.

Kold is the first song that the band have released where the band use their mother tongue, Danish. As handy as it is that bands sing in English, I do always enjoy when foreign bands put out songs in their own language as well. After a quick Google translate, I deduced that the Kold is about feeling emotionless, cold and soulless and just not caring about anything anymore. Anyone who’s suffered with depression at any point will no doubt understand the feelings in this song, assuming they speak Danish or use Google translate (probably quite hard to do if you’re watching the band live though). Kold also has a really cool guitar riff at the start that pulls you in and will get stuck in your head. Lasse delivers a stunning vocal performance on the ninth song, Broken. The emotion in their voice, particular during intro of the song is quite something to experience. At a lengthy two minutes and thirty seconds, this is the longest song on Best. I think they needed that extended time to achieve everything they wanted to with the song. There’s a slow bit, a big sing-along, melody changes and even some backing vocals (I think they’re drummer Leo’s) during the track. There’s absolutely loads going on. Listen for yourself to experience it all. The penultimate song on Best is titled Smile. Leo puts in one hell of a performance behind the drums on this song. He powers the band through the first half of the track before the band slow things back down for a more emotional ending to the song and it’s completed with some gang vocals. I do love gang vocals. Best is completed with the song Change. To me, this is Forever Unclean’s attempt at a country song and I love it. The opening of the song invites another big sing-along and it’s not too long before the band revert to the indie skate punk sound that they’ve become so well known for and then they switch to a huge sounding segment to finish the album off in the Best way possible.

I always think of Forever Unclean as a UK band despite the fact that they’re based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and are Danish. The reason being is that they’ve become a big part of the UK punk community during the last few years and, like I said in the intro, it always feels as if they play to bigger and bigger crowds whenever they return to the UK. With the release of Best I feel like they’ll be playing to their biggest UK crowds ever. We shouldn’t have to wait long to see them again either as they’re due in the UK for Manchester Punk Festival in April. I cannot wait to see them again.

Stream and download Best on Bandcamp here.

Like Forever Unclean on Facebook here.

This review was written by Colin Clark.