This past October, we were lucky enough to share a first listen to ‘Bone Sugar’, Forever Son’s first new bit of music in a couple of years that quickly revealed a striking new direction for singer-songwriter Jack Robbins. The transition was exhilarating; trading in his usual folk-rock bones for blown-out guitars and stomping grooves. At the time we were left wondering how the full album might reconcile his more electric tendencies with his calmer roots, and on Welcome To Alchemy Park, Forever Son masterfully bridges the gap.

From beginning to end, the album is bathed in a radiant, evocative sheen, drawing us into the retrospective elements of Forever Son’s sound while simultaneously placing us comfortably into his shapeshifting sonic world. Opening tracks ‘You Don’t Have To Go’ and ‘Teeth In The Face’ are two of the record’s mildest moments, yet they both come packed with curveballs and charm, setting us up to dive deep into the thrilling madness that’s to come. Up next, ‘How To Smile’ builds around a simmering backbeat while Jack’s sandy vocals tangle with masterful guitar leads, before we’re treated to the full sonic explosion that is ‘Bone Sugar’.

‘Runnin’ Round The Twist’ and ‘Everything’s Better With Milk’ keep this momentum up, both leaning into glam-infused garage-rock with Jack sounding more enigmatic than ever, over the wall of rich guitars and crunchy grooves. As the album rounds out though, the mood shifts back; ‘Kevin’s Street’ is a slowburning folk-rock drifter before ‘Fate And Fortune’ brings things to a close over six minutes, a track that harnesses the fearlessness of the record’s most volatile moments and places them in a far more tender setting, sending out Welcome to Alchemy Park on a perfectly wistful note.

To help us get to know the album a little better, Jack has kindly walked us through each track on Welcome to Alchemy Park.

You Don't Have To Go

I wrote this song as a bit of a mantra during one of the lockdown periods when I felt that all I had was the choice to go outside or stay inside. If I didn't go outside I felt like I had not achieved anything that day or I had almost made the choice to be isolated. I wanted to feel empowered with my choices but the decision to stay in bed didn't really harbour that feeling. I wanted to make peace with boredom. The eruption in the centre of the song happens because I had a post-it note on my desk that I had written ‘make counter intuitive decisions' on. It didn't seem like the song wanted to erupt then but I just had to know what it would be like. I trusted the note and stuck with it.

Teeth In the Face

I always feel funny saying it, but I wrote this song after having a dream after a particularly average live show I played. I had worked myself into a bit of a slump on the solo 1am drive home after the show and I think that created this dream. I don't remember all of the details but somebody approached me asking if they could paint my picture and I matter of factly told them that of course they knew they couldn't paint my picture because I didn't believe in myself. In the dream if you didn't believe in yourself you eventually couldn't be seen by anybody so I imagine I was slowly fading into oblivion. Anyways that's what started the song. I was also reading a book at the time that said “holding close like teeth in his face” and that perfectly described how I felt after I woke up. Like all my thoughts and emotions were huddling together in a cave hidden and protected behind the protection of my face. I really wanted the song to be erring on the slow and draggy side of things. That's exactly how I felt when I woke up, like I was in slow motion in a fast motion world.

How To Smile

This felt like it was the only song that could come after ‘Teeth In The Face’. This track is about the feeling of having to leave your hometown to make it happen. Like the only way to, dare I say "Get After It" is to forge your own way, away from where you grew up. I don't think this is entirely correct and I'm not sure why we feel it but it definitely feels like the only way to make it happen. But I think it's just more about paying attention to your true self. I wrote this song on the floor of a tiny converted barn in Melbourne next to the radiator during winter a few years ago.

Bone Sugar

When lockdown started I was working on some slower folkier songs and once we were stuck at home I just couldn't make any headway with them. I was struggling to keep motivated to finish them off on my own while I was just moving from the bedroom to the living room and back again day after day. On one of the sessions I found this guitar riff I had recorded months back and thought it would be fun to just finish it off. Once I started working on it I found I was way more motivated to tuck into songs that I could imagine myself playing live to an audience of people dancing and with my beautiful band. It became motivation. I'm not a big drinker but I had also decided that I would like to learn to drink whisky straight during this time so I wrote the lyrics while wandering around the paddock where I live, in gumboots, with my headphones on and a big old glass of whisky in hand. I had learned to love spicy food by hiding jalapeños in my lunch so I figured I could do the same with whisky. The lyrics are about finding the things you love in life. The little bit of zest that keeps you rocking and rolling.

Runnin' Round The Twist

This is another riff I found in a session from another song I was making. I ended up quickly roughing it out and posting it on my socials for a gag saying that Goats Head Soup by The Rolling Stones was my fav album, pretending it was a track from that record. Plenty of people watched it but nobody picked up on the fact that it wasn't The Rolling Stones which was funny and it had started to grow on me so I thought I'd see if I could make it work on the album. So it's a straight up Forever Son does The Rolling Stones track, let’s call it what it is haha. It's about all the thoughts that just get stuck in your head and how you can get caught up rolling them around and obsessing about them, especially when you are stuck at home.

Everything's Better With Milk

I wrote this song and used to sing it when I was making coffee at a couple of cafes in Melbourne. I had way too much time to think about how maybe saying we needed to have a coffee was just an excuse to have a warm cup of milk because we were giant babies. Also there was that fad at that time of turning everything into a latte. Mushrooms, turmeric etc, it was like we thought that adding milk or cream to anything made it better. I just riffed on that really. I wanted to start a cult called 'the illumi-latte society' and our motto would be 'everything doesn't have to be a latte'. One of my lovely friends even made a shirt with our motto on it for me. And at first I didn't think milk made everything better but I’m coming around.

Kevin's Street

This song is about a street I used to hang out on as a kid. We would always meet at Kevin’s Street before getting up to mischief. I wrote the lyrics while wandering around a park in Melbourne. I think walking really helps me write lyrics. I think removing yourself from distraction and getting bored helps with any creative thang.

Fate And Fortune

The final track is about the feeling I sometimes have that I'm not in control of anything in my life. There is that idea that all of our choices in life we have already decided. That we aren't really in control. I just wanted to explore that and also ponder on the thought that things hold such vastly different worths with different people. The instrumental in the middle I had written a few years back and it fitted perfectly in this track. I got really obsessed with it while I was mixing it and by the end the track felt like a vessel for the instrumental in the middle haha.