REVIEW: Forth Wanderers - The Longer This Goes On
Fun in the sun, such as it is
27:42 // July 18, 2025 // Sub Pop
The Longer This Goes On exists in an odd space - seven years after Forth Wanderers went on hiatus, the band reconnected to release this album, but their Bandcamp blurb firmly asserts “don’t call it a comeback”. In short, this may well be a one-off effort, with the band giving no commitment to any further music, let alone live performances. Given the context, this set of tunes is required to stand on its own in the strictest sense. And they sorta do, albeit frustratingly.
This New Jersey act’s previous material was often categorized as “Midwest emo”, which funnily enough, is one of the few indie-adjacent genres which I don’t detect in at least trace amounts on their comeback LP (oops). A wide range of sonic touchstones come and go across the brief runtime - Animal Collective, The Shins, and Alvvays feel particularly notable - leading to a quite scattershot listening experience, even if the ten songs remain consistently summery in vibe.
It’s that “scattershot” feeling which makes any final reckoning with The Longer This Goes On’s quality uneasy. There’s a lot to like, and, indeed, to love about this release - warm and sunny tunes are always appreciated this time of year, after all - but repeated listens haven’t helped me appreciate common threads among these tracks, and it’s important to note the diaphanous element of the musical beauty here as well, frequently melting away without a trace soon after most of these songs end. The viscous lethargy of “Honey”, the bouncy melodicism of “Spit”, and the urgent energy of “Barnard” mark them as summer playlist essentials, but taken as a whole, The Longer This Goes On fails to quite achieve the cohesion needed to represent a staple in my listening rotation. Certainly still nice to have Forth Wanderers back, though - reunions are fun, regardless of whether this one proves fleeting or not.
6.5/10