Something for everyone but only a little of what you like.
It's difficult to pin down an accurate biography of Luke Toms - not that such things as his place and year of birth are truly important in terms of discussing his musical outpourings, but it is often interesting to have a back story. He claims to have been born in 1904 and faked his own death in 2005, now exploring "life and pre-war jazz" from his London base. Judging from his healthy mustache and the vitality of his music and vocals Mr. Toms is far from being 103 years old, but it's not the first time someone has (wrongly) thought a preposterous story would make them appear more interesting and thus is not entirely unforgivable.
Those familiar with Luke Tom's 2006 EP ' Fools With Money' will already have heard the orchestral pop sound of 'Fools With Money', a flamboyant track with all the flair and catchiness of a Divine Comedy piece, however sadly without Neil Hannon's vocal expertise. 'Hangover Blues' makes another outing here and again sounds sickeningly rich and far too heavy with Luke Toms' bloated and rather unattractive vocals. Luckily it is positioned at the end of the record and thus does not greatly mire the other tracks.
There are a great deal of records that brand themselves as eclectic and claim to have been created from a wide variety of musical influences, but it is rare that this claim still stands once an unbiased ear (or pair of ears) has had a listen. 'The Forever House' can make such an assertion genuinely, however - it is a curious mishmash of musical styles, and for all the complaints that could be made about it one would never be that the tracks all sound similar or blend together. Tracks such as 'Friends Reunited' call to mind the flamboyance and lavish arrangements of 1970s acts such as Queen and ELO; whilst 'Home Is Where You Go' and 'Home Is Where You Go' call to mind an earlier era with their obvious jazz influences and the call to dance sent out along their melodies.
'The Forever House' provides its biggest surprise and beat treat simultaneously in the form of 'Estate Story'. An instrumental piece largely played out by piano and strings and despite having no vocals or lyrics (besides a spoken muttering in the background), it manages to convey more emotion than the rest of the album put together and wouldn't sound out of place on a film soundtrack. It is followed by 'Knever Know', another emotive track that sadly loses its way a little towards the end (think too-much-saxophone-in-an-eighties-sex-scene-kind-of-way) but nonetheless lyrically and (perhaps surprisingly) vocally strong.
This truly is an album with a track fro every taste and most moods, however that is both its strongest point and its downfall. Any listener would be hard pressed to dislike 'The Forever House' entirely, but equally it would be hard to not find several of the tracks annoying, boring or both. In choosing to take a slice of every pie Luke Toms has created a wide buffet that offers something for everyone but only a little of what they like: why listen to an album with one or two songs in a style you enjoy when you could listen to one operating entirely within a genre that brings you joy?