In a year defined by chaos and uncertainty, Valerie Forgione, better known now under her project Lovina Falls, offers something rare: an EP that not only acknowledges the turbulence but transforms it into beauty. “Would That It Were,” released September 5, 2025, is a balm and a rallying cry, a collection of five songs that embrace darkness while searching for sparks of connection and hope. Forgione, once the commanding voice of Boston alt-rock outfit Mistle Thrush, has spent recent years reimagining her art through this dream-pop and art-rock lens, and the result here is intoxicating. If her 2023 debut album “Calculating the Angle of Our Descent” was an introduction to this new world, then “Would That It Were” is the bold deepening of it—a statement that balances fragility and strength in equal measure.
The EP opens with “Light and Low,” a dizzying, propulsive piece anchored by electronic textures and the unlikely presence of a harpsichord. It’s a thrilling way to set the tone, immediately planting the listener in a soundscape that’s ancient and futuristic. Forgione has described the track as an anthem of moving forward, an invitation to shed outdated thinking and walk gracefully into the unknown. The song’s repeating melodic motif works like a mantra, its cyclical rise and fall evoking inevitability and choice. As the opener, it’s a reminder that Lovina Falls’ music is inhabited, lived in like a shifting, evolving room of sound.
From there, the EP turns toward warmth with “About the Sun,” a long-awaited studio rendering of a live favorite. Written around the same time as her debut album, the track is cinematic, almost soundtrack-like in its construction, which makes sense given Forgione’s extensive work in theater and film scoring. Lush guitar work from Alice Lee Scott and David Minehan adds a golden edge to the dreamlike layers, while Forgione’s alto voice cuts through like sunlight breaking a dense cloud. The song is less about celestial mechanics than about finding light when you least expect it, and its sweeping arrangement carries that message effortlessly.
The centerpiece of “Would That It Were” is “Tragedy,” first released as a single last year, and here it lands with renewed weight. Heavy-set percussion from Todd Demma and snarling guitar contributions from Scott and Brenden Cobb drive the track into post-apocalyptic territory. It’s tense, dense, and unrelenting—Forgione’s voice weaving through the din like a lament and a warning. The song captures societal exhaustion and fractured empathy in the post-pandemic years, its relentless drive echoing frustration and resilience. This is Lovina Falls at their heaviest, but also at their most cathartic, turning disillusion into something almost ceremonial.
By contrast, “Ellery Way” offers a reprieve, a slow-building sweep that trades chaos for connection. Here, Matt Klain’s buoyant bass and Forgione’s vocal delivery conjure a sense of exploration and wonder. It’s a song about escaping into moments of extraordinary beauty, about holding tight to shared experiences even as the outside world frays. Where “Tragedy” batters the senses, “Ellery Way” soothes them, giving the EP its emotional range and balancing the scales between despair and joy. It also underlines one of Forgione’s most consistent themes across her work: the belief that art and community can carve out islands of safety and imagination amid turbulence.
The new spotlight single, “In the Corner, a Fire,” closes the EP with fire and flair. Buoyant, upbeat, and laced with electronic-pop vibrancy, it feels like a distant cousin to Calculating’s “Hologram.” Forgione finally fulfills her long-held desire to incorporate vocoder here, adding a futuristic shimmer to her vocals. Lyrically, the song delves into curiosity, temptation, and the deconstruction of rigid systems, playing with the battle of good versus evil as both an internal struggle and a societal one. With live drummer Chuck Ferreira giving the track irresistible motion, “In the Corner, a Fire” ends the EP not in ashes but in sparks—proof that even when the world seems intent on self-destruction, flames of creativity and risk-taking still glow in the corners.
What makes “Would That It Were” remarkable is the strength of its individual tracks, and the way they interlock into a journey. Forgione calls the EP a “songwriting travelogue,” and that’s apt—the songs were written across different seasons and creative states, yet together they form a map of resilience. It’s music that acknowledges fracture and instability, yet insists on joy and connection as acts of defiance. Every layer of sound is intentional: Cobb’s distortion wizardry, Scott’s inventive manipulations, Klain’s propulsive bass, and Ferreira’s metronomic drumming all serve Forgione’s vision without overwhelming it. This is collaboration in its truest sense, a tribe built around trust and shared creativity.
Sonically, Forgione continues to blur boundaries. Dream-pop meets post-punk, cabaret tangles with glam, and electronic textures mingle with baroque instrumentation. Her influences are apparent, but the alchemy is distinctly her own, sharpened by years of artistic exploration beyond traditional band settings. Produced with David Minehan at Woolly Mammoth Sound and mastered by David Locke, the EP captures studio polish and live intimacy, giving the songs multiple lives—one on record, another on stage. Forgione herself calls this ever-changing listener experience central to Lovina Falls’ ethos, and you can hear it: each track feels complete and ready to morph when performed live.
Ultimately, “Would That It Were” is a milestone. It marks the point where Lovina Falls evolves from solo project into a collective force, where Forgione’s vision intertwines with her collaborators’ energy to create something bigger than the sum of its parts. The title, with its wistful air of “if only,” might suggest longing, but the music itself speaks of presence, persistence, and transformation. In a time when the world leans toward destruction, Forgione and her tribe choose creation. And in five unforgettable songs, they invite us to do the same.
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