On Trial's final album, the deceitfully named
Forever, was essentially a hangover: the foggy, lightheaded comedown from a career-long, kaleidoscopic, and slowly cresting acid trip that appears to have culminated four years earlier with 2002's watershed
Blinded by the Sun LP. A workmanlike live release and covers album (2003's Head) had padded the intervening years, already hinting at the fact that, for all intents and purposes, the cult Danish psych rock ensemble was just idling to a stop, and
Forever pretty much confirms it. However, that's not to say the album is entirely bereft of striking moments. Scattered here and there amidst the abiding lassitude, momentary highs occasionally prick one's ears by way of the garage rock melancholy of "One Good Morning," hypnotic fuzz of "Every New Direction," jittery frug of "Believe," and bipolar closing salvo of "Going North," which comes in like
Monster Magnet and rides out like an opium den in Marrakech. Too bad these were the exception, not the rule, and the ruling majority of the songs found here errs either on the side of caution (see aimless psych-surf rockers like "Black Seagull" and "Blood River") or, well, pure boredom (the energetic but unimaginative "Mountain," "Speaking of Witch," and others), showing
On Trial were just plain running out of ideas. And time, apparently, as the band quietly broke up a short time after
Forever's release and has yet to be heard from again. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia