Forget, Forget
You’re Not Gone
self-released 

Songs about loneliness tend to sound good on a synthesizer. It’s an instrument that gives one person the power to sound like an orchestra, to make something layered and grand — no friends required. On its long-awaited second LP, the Portland band Forget, Forget drowns its sorrows in synths, and the results are often blissful. Once an Arcade Fire-ish indie-rock collective, the act is now 71 percent smaller than it was on its 2013 debut. So perhaps it’s not surprising that remaining members Tyler DeVos (guitars, vocals) and Patia Maule (keys, vocals, percussion) are writing songs about lost friends and fading memories, and bathing them in the nostalgic warmth of vintage analog synths. When it all comes together, like on the opening track, “City,” it’s glorious. Maule’s primary synth patch flickers like Morse code, and DeVos’ voice flutters like a rare bird. “And though your disappearance will break my bones / Still ripple just the same,” he belts on the chorus, hitting a sublime falsetto note on “ripple.” The purity of his tone, the hopefulness of the melody, and the reassuring blankets of sound are the perfect counterpoint to the fear and uncertainty in the lyrics. Forget, Forget is making a strong argument for synth-pop as the ultimate vehicle to not only convey loneliness, but to transcend it.

— Joe Sweeney