Promotion for Forever began with the release of a Max Moore-directed music video for the title and opening track, "Forever," in October 2016. Presented entirely in black, white and red like the album's cover art, the video for "Forever" rapidly cuts between scenes of Code Orange performing and other violent or abstract imagery, often with shaky camera footage. Of the video, Jami Morgan said: "I think the visuals match what we're about. It's definitely brutal and it's dark, but I think we have our own specific brand of it that includes a lot of dynamics of dark and a lot of shades of that." In December 2016, Code Orange released a digitally created "visualizer" for the track "Kill the Creator". Created by Brandon Allen Bolmer, the video shows a naked man in a chamber being tortured by a "hellish force that he created from all the wrong he has done." In the weeks leading up to the album's official release date, Code Orange also released online streams of the tracks "Bleeding in the Blur" and "Ugly" in January 2017. Touring in support of Forever began with a January–February 2017 US tour featuring Youth Code, Gatecreeper, Nicole Dollanganger, Lifeless and Disgrace. The tour was noted for its wide variety of music genres among the bands on the bill. On the subject of the variety of bands, Morgan said: "I don't think it's something people are going to get to see every day. It's gonna be a very jarring experience. And our set's going to be a jarring experience. And the whole show is going to be a jarring experience, so that's what we're all about." Guitarist Eric Balderose collaborated with Drumcorps to create a mixtape under the moniker Shade titled It's Almost Forever that will be played between sets and exclusively sold on cassette on this tour. A music video for the track "The Mud", directed by Balderose and Dmitry Zakharov, premiered on Adult Swim's Toonami block on September 30, 2017.
Music
Described as a metallic hardcore album, Forever features influences from various different styles in metal and hardcore, including industrial metal and nu metal. The album also employs "pitch-shifted vocal samples, glitched-out effects and dissonant layers of screeching noise." The track "Bleeding in the Blur" features alternative rock-influenced choruses, clean vocals and stoner metal riffage whereas "Hurt Goes On" attributes influences to Nine Inch Nails's musical output. The album has also been described as industrial hardcore.
Critical reception
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 87, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on six reviews. The A.V. Club critic J.J. Anselmi wrote: "Despite its ridiculous lyrical moments, Forever advances the trend of mashing together disparate styles in metal and hardcore." Branan Ranjanathan of Exclaim! thought that "Code Orange have put together a record that few others in the genre would have the nerve to attempt making, and have found a number of ways to stay engaging across the set without losing any of their previous weight or momentum." Metal Injection's Michael Pementel noted the "great use of structure, heaviness, surprises, and pure energy from beginning to end in this album." Pitchfork critic Zoe Camp stated that the band "offers up compelling, caustic, and occasionally even catchy evidence that they have earned their alpha-dog scene posturing." Stephen Hill of Metal Hammer wrote that "this is resolutely hardcore punk, while remaining completely unique" and called it "a stone cold modern classic", as well as giving it a score 9 out of 10.
Accolades
Track listing
Personnel
Code Orange
Eric Balderose – vocals, guitars, synthesizer
Reba Meyers – vocals, guitars
Joe Goldman – bass
Jami Morgan – drums, vocals
Additional musicians
Dominic Landolina – additional guitars
Arthur Rizk – solo guitar on "Bleeding in the Blur"
