Steeped in baroque pop meets Gothic Rock, dark intimacies and grand walls of sound, "The House of Love" (Epilogue) by Endless Forms, feels, in some ways, like a ghost story and, in other ways, like an art rock opera. Endless Forms is the musical moniker of singer-songwriter, musician, producer Justin Allen and "The House of Love" is the title track of Allen's most personal album to date, dropping on October 20th (2023). Awash in orchestral drones of sound and surreal ascensions of rising tensions swirling around dour piano, there is a commanding sense of loss and longing. A memoric tomb, maybe many small deaths equally an ultimate end.
As Liner Notes reveal:
[‘The House of Love’ tells the story of a very close friend intentionally and somewhat shockingly ending a friendship, and Endless Forms explores why we stay with or leave the people in our lives. On the track he said “I think we often treat our relationships as a sort of emotional entertainment to make us feel less alone in the world, but we often don’t prepare ourselves for what we’ll do when that love inevitably turns heavy — when we or they really need something we haven’t asked for before, when we’re in pain, or when trust is broken. At those junctures, we suddenly have the opportunity for life to get deeply meaningful and satisfying if we engage the moment, but that’s often precisely the moment when we jump ship and search for someone new that isn’t complicated yet”]
AND:
[The lyrics and themes of the album are often very heavy, and Endless Forms wanted to find a way to introduce lightness and romanticism to the songs as he focuses on how to connect more deeply with his life and the people in it from a place of deep fear and scarcity. ‘The House of Love’ is entirely self produced and self recorded, with Endless Forms playing all guitars, bass, piano, synth, and small percussion. From his band, Chad Henderson played all live drums and Kari Babcock did female vocals.]
I appreciate the sonics of this track, sounds feel tangential but purposeful to a fault. Allen's vocal countenance, lovely in it's melancholia doesn't sound forced or acted upon. The words and way they are expressed feel utterly present, steeped in real emotions from real places. When artists can tap into the truth, their own, that art has the ability to slip into our psyche as if strangers memories can touch and intertwine. It is a lovely thing, as lovely as really touching. It is the reason that art can make us cry.
[“We all say we want to be loved and deeply known, and then are surprised at how terrifying and vulnerable it really feels once we have it. We really aren’t sure if we’ll still be loved if we are truly, completely known, and it’s scary to find out even if the news is good. We want to truly belong to something meaningful and lasting, but then find ourselves unwilling or incapable of really giving ourselves away. But in the face of such deep listlessness, we begin to desire something rich and meaningful to belong to, and nothing becomes more powerful and compelling than to be needed by someone else.” - Endless Forms]
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/45qAYZp30YlU29wdDU5JWK
https://www.instagram.com/endlessformsmusic/
https://endless-forms.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/_EndlessForms
http://www.endlessformsmusic.com/
Endless Forms was started by writer and producer Justin Allen in 2015 with the release of his debut Lazarus — a thoughtful album reaching out for a cathartic answer to life’s looming existential questions. Endless Forms’ subsequent releases — 2017’s If There Were Water, 2020’s More Than Candy, and 2022’s Electric Heat Hypnotized each dive progressively further into the fractal, evolving with each release into a dreamy marriage of deep atmosphere, layered rhythms, and earnest lyrics. Endless Forms’ upcoming album, 'The House of Love' is the most intimate and personal album Justin Allen has ever released. In a strange way, it’s an album of love songs. But where most love songs are written from the standpoint of *falling* in love, these songs are written instead from the middle of the marathon, when we start to be held a little too close, get afraid of loss, and it makes us want to hide or act out. 'The House of Love' is written from a vulnerable place — colored by the fear and uncertainty that come truly belonging to someone. 'The House of Love' is also Endless Forms’ most sonically dynamic album to date, with the large themes buoyed by spacious, ethereal textures, and layered rhythms that border on funky. The music seeks such simple pleasure that you might forget how much is truly at stake. 'The House of Love' is an album that takes the large themes of past Endless Forms albums and distills them into a more intimate human question: how do we love when we are afraid?
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