by Jeff Yerger (@jyergs)
This was supposed to be the spring of rebirth for Forever Honey. Instead, Pre-Mortem High, the promising debut EP from the band formerly known as Queue, dropped to a cloistered world that is just now getting used to the silence.
As the days are getting longer and slower, time is still moving just as fast as it always has. In the past few weeks, many of us have found ourselves with extra time on our hands, and it’s what we do with this time that will shape who we are after this is over. What better time than now to think about the people we have become and the people we want to be? The world may be on pause, but our lives certainly aren’t.
Forever Honey understands the importance of personal reflection. On Pre-Mortem High, the band explores the relationships we have with each other and with ourselves, through catchy dream pop and jangly 80s new wave anthems. Band members Liv Price (vocals, guitar), Aida Mekonnen (guitar, vocals), Steve Vannelli (drums), and Jack McLoughlin (bass) have turned the coming-of-age anxiety we feel in our 20s into music that’s brimming with life and humanity.
Earlier this year, the band announced their reemergence under their new moniker and unleashed “Christian,” the effortlessly hooky and immediately addicting debut single. It was the first taste of music the band delivered as Forever Honey, and it is one hell of an introduction. Like the rest of the EP, there’s a palpable sense of urgency here. “You don’t know what’s good or how to recognize it,” Price sings, airing out her grievances and grappling (perhaps to herself) with the end of something good.
Although Pre-Mortem High is only four tracks long, it’s clear that Price and Mekonnen have a real chemistry together, especially when they sing. The two are always within arm’s reach as they interlock and trade lines with each other in songs like “Go For A Smoke” or the heartbreaking “Where We Are Sometimes.” The other star of the record is Mekonnen. Throughout the EP, her Rickenbacker guitar glimmers and rings, laying the foundation upon which these songs live. The second single “Twenty-Five,” is built around a riff like a ticking-clock while Price fills the space wondering where her life is headed. “Getting old / I don’t seem to care” she sighs. Like countless twenty-somethings before her, Price is coming to the realization that maybe she’s becoming more like her parents than expected. “Thought I’d never say I’m looking more like you every day / it’s not a bad thing” she admits. There are worse things to be.
I can't stop thinking about how hard it must be for a band like Forever Honey to try and create buzz in a buzz-less world. What do you do when you have gigs to play, videos to promote, and on top of all that, a new band name to grow into? Do you wait this thing out, or continue to go on as planned? There really isn’t a clear answer, but I'm glad Forever Honey opted to march forward with the EP, pandemic be damned. Pre-Mortem High is a confident mission statement from a band with a lot of promise, and it’ll be there when the world is ready to press play again.