Forever for Now

Album review

Aside from the 1950's-styled slow-dance sway of "You Won't Dance With Me," Forever for Now is weighted down for the most part with amateurish album rock, with little of April Wine's proven abilities surfacing to keep it from being redundant. Songs such as "Hard Times," "Come Away," and "Forever for Now" try hard to emulate some of their past singles like "Oowatanite" or even the title track to Whole World's Goin' Crazy, but neither Goodwyn's singing nor the songs themselves muster up enough contagious rock energy to do so. Forever for Now sounds like an obligatory commitment, but it's not, and if enough attention was given to the rest of the songs as it was to "You Won't Dance With Me" (which cracked the Top Ten in Canada), then the album may have been on par with Whole World and close to Stand Back's caliber. But tracks like "Holly Would," "Hard Times," and "Child's Garden" sound a bit silly without any supportive guitar riffs or likeable arena rock flavor, and the band comes off as if they're still coasting from their last release. Forever for Now's addition to the collection is understandable when it comes to the completist, but for the most part it's dispensable. It wouldn't be until three years later that April Wine would have another chart hit, breaking into the Top 40 with "Roller" in 1979.
© Mike DeGagne /TiVo