With two years having passed since their last album, Bleachers made a powerful return this week as they dropped new single ‘you and forever’. The track marks the announcement of the band’s fifth album, ‘everyone for ten minutes’, due to be released on 22nd May through Dirty Hit Records.
Layering ambient synths, reverberating vocals and panoramic Springsteen-style instrumentals that are characteristic of the band, ‘you and forever’ is both ethereal and explosive, juxtaposing calmness and chaos. Contemplative verses are written poetically, with impactful lyrics like, “I had never known my name until you spoke it from your chest”, revealing the deep, personal love behind the track. Meanwhile, each refrain crescendos beyond the personal, deploring “the bastards”, and “everyone they stop from doing an inch of good”, peaking in the bridge, which goes a step further in its praise of the singer’s beloved: “No Jesus Christ, no Roman gods, they cower at you… I just saw the heavens open up”.
All of this is underscored eerily by the calm repeated chorus of “darling it’s just you and forever”, leaving the singer’s love as the driving force behind the track, and the only consistency within the turmoil.
The track’s music video, directed by Alex Lockett and Patricia Villarrillo, reflects this strikingly. The video stars actress Margaret Qualley, who is also married to lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Antonoff. Qualley is a gorgeous, graceful presence, spending the video playfully dancing around the couple’s apartment, while Antonoff fights through the rain and the road to return to her. It is a cinematic, beautiful representation of both the calmness and the chaos.
Qualley lights up the video and the track, and the choice to place her centre-stage ultimately makes ’you and forever’ a love letter to her, and an elegant display of the pair’s love and affection, which sets a promising precedent for the upcoming album.
Emily Sanderson
Image: ‘you and forever’ Official Single Cover