Rob Eberle’s music often sits closer to the pop spectrum than it does the place where indie or rock are made, but this time out, he certainly heads further into the latter realms. It’s a great musical mix for him. “Forever Ends Right Now” certainly ticks all the right boxes for pop accessibility and mainstream favour, but, in spirit at least, it feels like a song that might have been found on the fringes of pop music back in the 80’s, a time when bands on independant labels were gleefully blurring the margins of the pop/rock divide.
Now, that isn’t to say that there is anything retro going on here; nothing could be further from the truth. If spiritually it echoes the creativity of a more enlightened time, sonically it is as of the here and now as a pop song can get.
And, unlike a lot of its chart-bound competition, this song is more profound, more soul-searching than its accessible and addictive grooves might suggest. “Forever Ends Right Now,” as the title fore-shadows, is a starkly honest snapshot of the moment both parties in a relationship know that things have run their course, even if the words haven’t yet been spoken.
It brilliantly reflects that quiet, loaded stillness just before the actual breakup, the song lingering in that heavy, in-between space where love has ebbed away, and it is only routine, or perhaps fear, that still holds you together. The calm before the emotional storm, perhaps. It’s the sound of mourning something that’s technically still alive, a sonic wake for something that hasn’t yet passed, a slow fade captured in melody and mood.
