While I have covered Kurt Travis’ most recent outing with our review of Royal Coda’s Compassion, my personal favorite effort from him is 2017’s Eternity Forever EP. With Ben Rosett of Strawberry Girls helming the bass/drums/production and Brandon Ewing formerly of CHON on the guitar, this project was something unlike anything I have ever heard. It is so tough to even think of another band that remotely sounds like Eternity Forever as they list themselves as “Mathrock R&B” on Facebook.

Kurt employs a different vocal style in this EP than he typically does, sounding much more mellow and soft than his typical yelling nature in previous bands like A Lot Like Birds and Dance Gavin Dance. Similarly, Ben and Brandon break out the complex rhythms that they are accustomed to but attribute them to a more melodic, soul-driven style than Strawberry Girls or CHON. These departures from the norm make for an exciting listen for both long-time and new fans of the band.

Unfortunately, this trio never made it past the EP phase, as Kurt departed after seemingly a full-length album was on the way. No music exists with these three members past this four-song release, and the Facebook page states, “We also featured Kurt Travis on vocals once.” The verbiage of “once” is concerning to me, implying that Kurt’s involvement with the band was nothing more than a formality. For a three-piece, though, he makes up 33% of the band, so I feel he deserves better treatment than that.

While Ben has released more music on Spotify tagging the Eternity Forever name, it is not fair to call this more Eternity Forever music. These instrumental tracks are satisfying listens, but one would be hard-pressed to call it more Eternity Forever without Ben and Kurt. After 2018’s “Lovespell” and with Ben in clear control of the Facebook to plug his own works, the band is no more. Such a shame, since this was a fresh new mixing of the genres that I looked forward to hearing more of.

I recall seeing in-fighting between Kurt and Ben’s significant others in Eternity Forever’s Facebook group, but that fight was deleted before I could confirm its legitimacy, so I cannot attest to that factoring into the split of the band. Kurt performed the entirety of the Eternity Forever EP in his solo headlining run in late 2018, with Televangelist as his backing band. Nevertheless, you can currently find Ben releasing more of his own music/Strawberry Girls, while Kurt is killing it in Royal Coda.

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