Evermore - Taylor Swift: Review
is a pop artist who at this point needs no introduction. After racking up a decades worth of hits and massive commercial success in the late 2000's and 2010's Taylor finally reached a place of critical success earlier this year on her indie inspired Aaron Dessner produced 8th studio album folklore. Just a few months later Taylor is following this up with a second album in a similar vein. Much like it's predecessor evermore is an indie folk inspired record with a similar set of collaborators that was also surprise announced and dropped with no singles.
Review By Lav:
I have never been a big fan of Taylor Swift, see my Lover review here. While her first few records are just as utterly intolerable today as they were when they first came out she has had a few points where it felt like she was moving slightly in the right direction. 2012's Red was easily her best album to date but she followed it up with the middling mediocre 1989. 2017's Reputation was easily her best album to date and she followed it up with the generic and underwritten Lover. So once again when she dropped the best record of her career up to this point in Folklore earlier this year I wasn't necessarily thrilled about her future prospects as far as critical success goes. Thankfully while evermore is a clear step back it isn't a disaster and has a few moments that show both genuine investment into this sound on Taylor's part and songwriting and production that fits.
There are 15 tracks on this record that make up an hour of length and there are certainly a number of moments I can live without so we will start there. willow is the opener and the only thing it really makes me want to do is think of corn puns I can use in this review because jesus christ is this thing one cliche after another. The hook is actually decent if you can ignore the lyrics because Taylor's breathy vocals are better than usual but it isn't anywhere near enough to save the song. no body, no crime is difficult to listen to. It is as trite an indie pop song as they come and HAIM don't bring all that much with their supporting vocals either. However the lyrics to the song and the story it tells are actually really engaging and enjoyable which puts me in a bit of a tough place. I wouldn't wish for anyone to have to actually listen to this song but if you wanna look up the lyrics on Genius of something give them a read because they're pretty good. ivy is a track that tells the story of infidelity and uses the metaphor of somebody's stone house being covered in ivy. All I have to say about this track is that I am retroactively apologizing for criticizing some of the bad metaphors on folklore because this one is way worse.
More than there are terrible tracks on the record there are a lot of mediocre cuts that see Taylor almost getting it right but missing hard somewhere. champagne problems is a ballad with a pretty coherent story that I enjoy more than I thought I would. I wish Taylor could sing with a little more grit given the nature of the song but I guess it fits in with the sweet strings and gentle supporting vocals. The songs bridge however is an absolute disaster where all of the compelling nuance disappears and Taylor hams it up for a really weird refrain that doesn't fit at all. 'tis the damn season isn't bad but it has almost nothing impactful or memorable about it at all mainly because the refrain the track insists on repeating over and over really isn't all that good. The instrumental has some sweet parts and Taylor delivers some soft subtle vocals on the verses that results in an alright song.
cowboy like me is a track with some wandering R&B guitar lines that may be the most inherently attention grabbing piece of instrumentation on the entire record. Even though it doesn't fit in with the tracks tone at all I guess I can say I'm glad it's there and it makes the song a little more noteworthy. long story short is the one track here that mostly resembles a pre-folklore era Taylor Swift. The songwriting is just as pop standard as Taylor's stuff has always been but they thankfully it isn't so bad it's painful. Similarly closure comes at the end of the record right in between two of it's better tracks and suffers from a case of generic-itis with the rest of the album. The song isn't bad but pretty much everything it does it done better somewhere else on the album.
So that's half the record and, it isn't great. But thankfully the album has 7 more tracks that I think are a much more worthwhile bunch including some major highlights. There's only a few points on the record where an entire track begins to resemble the sound of The National and I think they're both decent. coney island actually features National frontman Matt Berninger and he isn't nearly as awkward a vocal pairing with Taylor as I was anticipating. The song definitely avoids any of the drawn out lulls that make The National's music so excruciating sometimes and emerges on the other side a pretty decent track. happiness on the other hand is even more obviously pulling from The National playbook but thankfully it does so really well. The track combines a subtle almost reluctant piano led instrumental with a confident lyrical narrative from Taylor about leaving a bad relationship behind. She brings a flare to it that works well alongside the instrumental and makes for a highlight.
There is another artist whose music very clearly influences a couple of tracks here and if you remember the song cardigan from folklore you know that artist is Lana Del Rey. gold rush is the result of Taylor finally sitting down with Jack Antonoff and saying "make me a song that will make the gays love me as much as they love Lana". Joking aside this is a Norman Fucking Rockwell track but much like cardigan I don't really mind the borrowing because it makes for one of the best tracks on the record. Taylor's confidence and mystique is compelling over an instrumental as lucious as this one. tolerate it may be an even more obvious Lana moment but this time Taylor is pulling from something much more akin to Honeymoon or Lust For Life era Lana. Taylor does a pretty good job here with steady piano keeping the song grounded and moving as well as delivering what sounds like lyrics from a place far more genuine than usual particularly when she repeatedly breaks her flow on the songs second half.
dorothea is a pretty solid track in spite of how annoying the upbeat songs on the first half of the record can be. The track features some genuinely wonderful vocal melodies over sweet keys and while the songwriting may not hit it out o the park I do think it's commendable that Taylor pulled it off so well. marjorie is a track that has grown on me every time I've listened to the record starting with Taylor's "what died didn't stay dead" refrain being one of the most memorable on the record. The instrumental is almost dreamy in its presentation and once again Taylor weaves a pretty compelling lyrical narrative.
The closing song and title track evermore is so clearly the best song on the record and so much better quality than everything else that I have to think it was the sole purpose for putting out this entire record. It's as good if not better than the Bon Iver collaboration on folklore and is an excellent track for all the same reasons. While it's inclusion may not justify the entire album it certainly draws it to a close on a wonderful moment that keeps up a solid streak of momentum the record ends off on.
If evermore did anything, it made me appreciate folklore a little bit more. Where folklore has a handful of excellent highlights and doesn't completely whiff that often the long but slightly shorter runtime of evermore features less great tracks and more terrible ones. The record is still comfortably in the top half of Taylor records however and compared to previous major step backs it is a relatively consistent continuation of the moment she established for herself on folklore. It is difficult to have any coherent feelings about how much I'm anticipating what Taylor will do next given that she's one of the most inconsistent artists out there, but I'll say a continuation of her dive into the indie music realm and a more work with the talented array of producers she has been alongside in 2020 couldn't hurt. 5.5/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
This cover is just okay. When compared to the folklore cover it really isn't as successful. The photo is good, the composition is simple and nothing new. I applaud her for going the minimal route as Lover and Reputation were very heavy on the graphics but it's also not a cover I would get excited about. Is it representing where she's at in her career right now? Yes. But it seems like this really was just an outtake. I'm neither mad at it nor impressed by it. 5/10
For more pop check out my review of Miley Cyrus' Plastic Hearts here
