When “Night Shift,” one of two singles from Lucy Dacus’s 2018 album Historian, came out, it was impossible not to notice the ferocity and devastation of the songwriting and its delivery. Dacus wasn’t quite a newcomer, but the heartbreak, disappointment, and intensity that existed on Historian certainly helped her reach new listeners and be embraced by the scene and critics alike. Her follow-up, Home Video, only assisted in proving hers is a voice we should be paying close attention to, an artist who can not only create beautiful guitar-driven compositions but also possess a lyrical style that feels more interested in the nuances of emotionality than saccharine sentimentalism. Then, her work with boygenius — an entirely different experiment in composition and lyricism — helped blast Dacus, along with bandmate Phoebe Bridgers and her partner Julien Baker, further into the spotlight, while also sacrificing some of that signature edge all three of these artists are best known for. That kind of fame comes with a price, surely, and one that is no doubt still being paid by the three of them.

Considering all that’s happened since Historian’s release, it might be unsurprising to some that Dacus’s newest outing and her first for major label Geffen Records, Forever is a Feeling, doesn’t quite match the fervency and genius abstraction of her previous work. All of the press leading up to the album’s release saw Dacus discussing her personal life to an extent she’s never done before. Although she’s been openly queer for years, this particular press cycle has seen Dacus coming out over and over again and discussing her long-term relationship with Baker, something that was only speculated on by her most involved fans across social media.

In a recent New Yorker profile on Dacus and the album, she says “I want there to be different conversations about love than the ones that are happening. I worry that when I talk about this I get really abstract or rote—that it’s impossible to talk about because it’s been made into a corny, commodified thing. Love is such a money-maker, it’s just not always pleasant.” Of course, she’s right in her assertions, and as a queer person, it makes sense she wants to challenge people’s notions of what romance, love, and desire look like. But when you listen to Forever is a Feeling all the way through, you’re left wondering where the hunger for starting that conversation went.

Although the album sounds charming in its own right and especially upon first listen, Forever is a Feeling is mostly filled with mid-tempo compositions and lyrical sentimentality that’s missing the subtlety Dacus is so talented at providing. Take “Big Deal,” “Modigliani,” the album’s title track “Forever is a Feeling,” and one of the lead singles “Best Guess,” for example — all beautifully composed tracks, if a little less exciting than others, yet they’re filled with cliche lyricism that Dacus usually eschews like “You make me homesick for places I’ve never been before” and “If I were a gambling man, and I am / You’d be my best bet.” Tracks like “Ankles” and the remarkably flat duet with Hozier, “Bullseye,” are much more impressive lyrically but leave a lot to be desired in terms of Dacus’s delivery and emotionality. And that’s not to say it’s a problem that Dacus’s focus on this album is on the joyful euphoria of loving and being loved — I would argue that part is worth celebrating — but the passion in the expression of those feelings, especially from an artist so skilled in doing just that, should be there, too.

The standout tracks on the album, “Limerence” and “Lost Time,” bring us much closer to the sensibilities and earnestness we’re used to seeing from Dacus. “Limerence” is a dreamy, piano and string-heavy arrangement about an intoxicated evening with friends where Dacus feels compelled to hurt the person she loves: “My arm ’round the waist of a friendly acquaintance / Toeing the line of betraying your trust / Why do I feel alive when I’m behaving my worst?” It’s difficult to listen to but feels authentic to the experience of falling so deeply for someone you’re scared of actually committing to that love. “Lost Time” is a tender, acoustic-guitar-driven track that slowly amps up in intensity as the song goes on about finally admitting to her feelings for Baker and how she hopes to prove they’re true. Here, Dacus sings “’Cause I love you, and every day / That I knew and didn’t say / Is lost time / Now I’m knocking down your door / ‘Cause I’m trying to make up for / Lost time,” and it feels like the closing of the loop that’s opened in “Limerence.”

These two tracks show that Dacus hasn’t completely abandoned the conversation she wanted so badly to begin. But on an album so situated in Dacus’s relationship with Baker — from grieving the loss of a relationship right before she realized she was falling in love with Baker to being together in new relationship bliss — shouldn’t listeners be able to feel the smoldering ache of desire, the ecstatic rapture of new love, and the anxiety of what all of that might mean in the present and in the future? Certainly, it’s a risk to admit these feelings out loud to a listening public, but it feels a little disappointing she didn’t think the risk was worth taking here. Ultimately, Forever is a Feeling seems like a stepping stone to realizing her full potential as an artist writing about the topics she’s introduced here, and I can’t wait to hear what she gives us when she reaches wherever she’s trying to go.

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