Jerome Forde is a singer/songwriter from the shores of northern Michigan and the first American to sign with the Toronto-based indie label (weewerk). The label has announced an upcoming release from Forde, an EP titled I Won’t Ever Get Over You. Available on streaming services June 27th, 2025, it will include four new songs and two bonus demo tracks.
As with Forde’s previous releases, it’s “a collection of gritty love songs” grounded in melody. The EP is also being released in anticipation of his third full-length album later this year. Ahead of the EP, the the single and video for “Hold On” have arrived today, Friday, June 13th, 2025.
The new track, “Hold On” is characterized by the warm, bright, inviting guitar work that we see in Jerome Forde’s previous releases, but leans a little more into a sound that’s a bit Western as well as electronic. This feeling is supported by vocals that venture a little further into an Americana, or even Country delivery. An echoey sense of space to the vocals and the guitars suggests dimension, possibly the perspective over a lifetime or a long period of time. There’s an almost Eagles-like expansion to the harmony vocals that makes the song even more expansive feeling. It’s definitely a love song, with a conversation between a speaker and a “you” mentioned, and a sense of dialog. The sense of mutual support in the song through hard times reinforces the feeling that a relationship can be a foundational element in life, something that continues to stand as times change around us. A hopeful lift comes from imagery like that of the sun which is “not going down” but instead described as “just a rambler and it’s light is coming round.”
The track’s video delves into the imagery of the forested and pastoral world more fully than in Forde’s other videos so far, bringing a summer and reflective feel. Seemingly vast woodlands form the backdrop for the video in a dreamy, slightly trippy way, but the regularity of tree trunks and the decisive way that the road cuts through the trees suggests reliable things in the midst of uncertainty. The close ups on flowers and leaves evokes a permanence, and even a resilience to the natural world that’s also a different impression of how time passes for the earth and what that means for humans. The couple in the video are at times alone, as if looking for each other in the trees, at times together as if they’ve managed to find their way, and the archetypal image of a couple walking down a dirt road together could just as well be found in a Van Gogh painting as in real life, conjuring ideas of our journey through life and the difference that love and companionship can make in that experience.
If you’re in the Michigan region, make sure to keep track of Jerome Forde’s frequent live performance, too.
