This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
The last two big-name artists to title their albums Forever were Puff Daddy and The Spice Girls — and we all know how that turned out.
But if anything can lift that curse, it’s this solidly satisfying effort from singer-songwriter David Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman, the leaders of long-running cult heroes Cracker. Balancing the high-flying guitar clang of early albums like Kerosene Hat with the ’70s-inspired songcraft of 1998’s Gentleman’s Blues, Forever presents 13 darkly burnished gems of soulful glam-pop, woozy country-honk and spindly post-millennial alt-rock, fronted by Lowery’s sinisterly dry vocals and absurdist lyrics (“You are so beautiful / You should be guarded by monkeys”). If Ian Hunter and Hugh Dillon got together with Urge Overkill and Tom Petty to remake Exile on Main Street, it couldn’t sound any cooler than this. Curse or no curse.
