Forever"" is a relative term. Proponents of the ""closed universe"" theory of physical cosmology will tell you that, eventually, there could actually be an end to time itself. But whether there will ever be an end to the post-punk revival, which seems to be losing no steam nearly a decade after it began, almost seems less likely.
This seems to be the idea behind This is Forever, the sophomore album from L.A. goth-rock duo She Wants Revenge. Bandmates Justin Warfield and Adam Bravin attempt to place their music in an ageless world of depression, where everyone begins every night with an awkward high school dance and ends it alone and in tears, only to do it all again tomorrow, for the rest of eternity. It's an unsustainable idea that, after producing a few excellent moments, suffers mightily from a refusal to expand its parameters.
Warfield and Bravin do not lack talent. There's no question that they take influence from the titans of post-punk's darker side - Joy Division, Bauhaus, the Cure, etc. - but to call She Wants Revenge a rip-off of them would be to miss their understatedly different approach to the style.
Frontman Warfield is, improbably enough, a former indie rapper. It isn't immediately obvious, but his hip-hop sensibility comes out through SWR's impeccably slick lyrics and musical arrangements in stark contrast to the often ragged production of their late-'70s and early-'80s goth forebears.
Warfield has an agile, rap-influenced lyrical style that leads to subtly impressive rhymes, like on ""Walking Away"" when he sings, ""Suddenly I start to wonder if there's more to the story / It doesn't matter either way in the end / Because you'll fall in love again / And there were others before me.""
Warfield also brings a sense of theatricality that, while perhaps not earning him points with goth fans clamoring for heartfelt genuineness, benefits his highly-polished persona. Like Jim Carrey channeling Andy Kaufman in ""Man on the Moon,"" his flawless, flat monotone seems like a better (proverbial) ""Ian Curtis impression"" than Curtis himself might have been able to do.
But despite SWR's positives, it's their narrowness of vision that makes it impossible to support the album as a whole. The first two singles from This is Forever are the outstanding ""True Romance"" and the quite good ""Written in Blood."" You might notice both songs are about the difficulties of relationships. This isn't a coincidence.
There are 13 tracks on This is Forever, and 11 of them are indisputably about the problems of relationships. The remaining two are instrumental tracks that, for all we know, probably are too. As each track provides yet another story of hopeless longing at a dance or sorrowful pre- or post-breakup melancholy, listening to the album becomes grueling. You can look at it as a serious rumination or you can look at it as a parody of teen anguish, but you can't look at it as worth 56 minutes of your life.
If Freud were alive today, She Wants Revenge might be his favorite band, but most of us understand there is more to explore in human emotions than the problems of sexual relationships. To be sure, it was a subject the godfathers of goth music loved, but they also took time to write about heroin, suicide or vampires now and then, too. This is Forever succeeds in the way that SWR will be able to license multiple songs to trailers for angst-ridden high school movies. Here's hoping next time they'll succeed in putting together a satisfying album.
