ALBUM REVIEW: More Forever – Sick Joy
A sophomore album is arguably the most important release for a band. It’s a follow up from their debut that showcases the journey they have been on, musically and sometimes personally. SICK JOY deliver just that, a punchy new release of alt rock anthems, poetic truths, and hard hitting lyrics.
More Forever doesn’t so much start as it cuts in, like a frayed cable crackling to life, volume already redlined, no warning given. SICK JOY twists distortion into a mood rather than a gimmick. The result is turning blown-out guitars and ragged hooks into something restless and alive, like pop songs being stress-tested until they splinter. The album hums with impatience. Melodies strain against fuzz, choruses feel half-buried under noise, and every track sounds like it’s fighting to stay upright while smiling through the damage. It’s messy, loud, and deliberately overloaded and that friction is exactly where More Forever finds its pulse.
The 40-second guitar-only opener feels like a rewind button being hit mid-static, dragging More Forever back to its rawest nerve before the impact lands. It’s bare, unresolved, and deliberately brief. It’s less a song than a throat-clear, setting the tone with restraint before everything caves in. When it snaps into All Damage, the transition hits harder because of that emptiness, like the album taking a breath just long enough to brace itself before the distortion floods back in.
Anything Goes leans fully into chaos-as-catharsis, riding a blown-out groove that feels one bad decision away from collapsing. The distortion isn’t just texture here: it’s pressure, pushing the song forward while the melody claws its way through the noise with reckless confidence. SICK JOY balances catchiness and abrasion in a way that feels deliberately unstable, like they’re daring the track to fall apart but knowing exactly when to yank it back into shape. It’s loud, loose, and deceptively sharp, capturing the album’s thrill of excess without losing its sense of control.
Across More Forever, SICK JOY circle themes of excess, detachment, and emotional overload, using distortion as both shield and signal flare. The imagery feels urban and internal at the same time: late nights, fried nerves, relationships stretched thin by repetition and desire. The emotions seem to hit where pleasure and numbness blur into the same sensation. There’s a constant push-pull between wanting more and feeling hollowed out by it, with hooks that sparkle even as the lyrics suggest burnout, obsession, and self-aware self-destruction. It’s an album fixated on cycles, habits, thoughts, impulses and that fixation sets the stage perfectly for Stockholm Flavour, where attraction and captivity begin to sound uncomfortably similar.
Death Scene (More Forever) closes the album like a slow fade-out through blown speakers, turning the record’s obsession with excess into something eerily reflective. The distortion feels heavier here, less frantic and more suffocating, as if the noise has finally caught up with the emotion underneath it. There’s a sense of finality without resolution, melodies linger, ideas echo, but nothing fully settles, mirroring the album’s central loop of wanting, burning out, and wanting again. It doesn’t offer closure so much as acceptance, letting More Forever end not with a release, but with the sound of itself folding inward.
Taken as a whole, More Forever thrives on tension, between noise and melody, impulse and awareness, indulgence and exhaustion. SICK JOY never smooths out the rough edges, instead letting distortion carry meaning, emotion, and momentum in equal measure. It’s an album that understands the thrill of excess without glamorising it completely, finding honesty in its overload and clarity in its mess. By the time it ends, More Forever doesn’t feel conquered or resolved, it feels lived in, frayed, and still humming long after the sound cuts out.
Rating: 7/10
More Forever is out now via SO Recordings.
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