For Ever

About

“Our first album was this imagined world that we created for ourselve,” Josh Lloyd-Watson tells Apple Music. “It was lyrically vague and metaphorical. This album definitely deals with things that have actually happened to u.” There’s been rich content to mine for Lloyd-Watson and Jungle co-founder Tom McFarland since their 2013 emergence. The pair’s modern soul collective swiftly went from viral curiosity to legit chart heavyweights—then absentee stars with their follow-up taking four years to materialize. “We were so keen to write the second record,” McFarland say, “but we were completely unaware of that first period that needs to happen: You actually need something to write about. We didn’t have the experience. We had to go out and live. Touring is not really <i>experience</i>.” The stately “House in LA” knowingly nods to the album’s generous gestation period (“Two whole years on the rewrite/Tell my friends I'm gonna be right there”), and the music here is tangibly more personal and lived-in. “It’s a healing record for both of u,” says McFarland, and it reflects their experiences while living and working in Los Angele. “I met somebody outside the Hollywood Bowl one day—you fall in love with somebody and get drawn to that area. It could’ve been anywhere and it just happened to be California, which is great because it’s sunny.” Their gilded, could-soundtrack-any-premium-TV-ad soul remain, but there’s an appealing vulnerability here, and a recognition that the world has changed since their last album. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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