In the words of Arthur Conley, do you like good music? It’s a deceptively simple question, one that’s increasingly at odds with our modern proclivity to slap labels on everything that moves. You could say that Forest play post-slacker-indie-alt-rock. Or you could say that they play pop songs.
The five-piece will release their second EP, ‘Caramel Arms’, on October 21 and it’s an endearing little beast. It’s fuzzy, and decidedly lo-fi, but at its core are four songs brimming with inventive melodies. Frontman Henry Barraclough, all 19 years of him, is a thinker. He’s pulled together the various strands of Forest’s sound, meticulously ensuring that the songs stand up to scrutiny while also maintaining a DIY ethos that has become vitally important to their rapid development.
“One thing that is pretty important for this stage in where we're at is that everything is done by us,” he said. “We didn't go to a studio, we recorded on the top floor of my house. It's all mixed by me. I feel that's quite important at the moment as I don't feel fully developed as a writer. I'm only 19 and I'd like to make sure that I'm exercising all of my abilities.”
At the heart of the decision to keep everything in house is a desire to continue honing his songwriting skills, something that he’s not currently willing to sacrifice to the musings of an outside producer. It’s immediately apparent that substance over style is an important personal touchstone and also one that should ensure that Forest won’t be churning out any glossy, empty music any time soon.
“I'm sure it varies between different producers in terms of how much input they really have,” he said. “The DIY ethic is really strong at the moment because I can be quite controlling about how the record ends up sounding. You've got the DNA of a song, the melody and the lyrics, and you've got how you realise it. Sometimes I feel that people just leave that up to some other guy, to take their songs and make them sound good.
“You get a lot of bands whose songs, if you really just listen to them, aren’t that great. It's not that catchy. You can tell that the producer has taken it and made it into something really cool. He's made the guitars sound a particular way. The overall feel of the track is sometimes made by a producer and I don't want someone else to be in control of that element of a song I've written.”
‘Caramel Arms’, as an EP, is an interesting development from the band’s debut, ‘Sweetcure’, which arrived earlier this year. Barraclough’s melodic nous remains, but there have also been a couple of stylistic shifts that suggest a whole new slate of sounds could form their next step.
“‘Sweetcure’ is, as a whole, poppier,” Barraclough said. “I look at 'Caramel Arms' and I see the first two tracks as really, really poppy in terms of the actual songs, rather than maybe the production. The second two tracks are proper shoegazey noise rock things.
“I actually really like how that looks on the vinyl. It's like having a double a-side on one side and a double a-side on the other. I just like turning that over. It's a completely different mood. That's something you can't really see on the digital version.”
Barraclough certainly believes that there’s more to come from the band. Whether it’s as a noise-rock troupe or as purveyors of rough pop gems remains to be seen, but one thing that’s certain is that they have plenty of options available to them. Underpinning the whole jamboree is Barraclough’s knack for understanding his music on perceptive level.
“I think you can really tell that a song isn't good if you can't imagine it being presented in any other way,” he said. “There are lots of other songs where you take away the production and there's nothing left. A pop song is the melody, the lyrics, it's whether it's catchy. You can dress it up really well and get away with it, but it won't last unless those fundamental things are there.
“I like the songs I'm writing and I think they've got substance, but I have not written my best stuff and I don't really feel like I should be trying to present these songs as the next number one. I haven't written that song yet.”
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
We don't run any advertising! Our editorial content is solely funded by lovely people like yourself using Stereoboard's listings when buying tickets for live events. To keep supporting us, next time you're looking for concert, festival, sport or theatre tickets, please search for "Stereoboard". It costs you nothing, you may find a better price than the usual outlets, and save yourself from waiting in an endless queue on Friday mornings as we list ALL available sellers!
