After a long wait, 4EverfreeBrony is finally back with a new album! It’s been nearly 3 years since his last concept album, Lost & Found. On The Perfect Prison, 4EverfreeBrony explores themes of death, grief, and immortality. Dark topics like these are something he seems to have a special relation to: his first concept album was The Pink Side Of The Moon from 2014, about Pinkie Pie being alone on the moon and the resulting depression, and two years later he released Hoping, where Twilight copes with immortality (and which got a remaster just last year).

So we’re once again listening to Twilight and the burdens of her immortal alicornhood. Specifically, The Perfect Prison is about grief, with the songs representing different stages of grief, or the spectrum of emotions tied to it. Get a song by song breakdown after the break

The Same Sky
As the first song on the album, this was given an immediate YouTube release. It sets the tone with dark, rending instrumentals and vivid lyrics: “What’s left of me now / Is just an empty carcass”. We’re finding ourselves in the horseshoes of Twilight, presumably several generations in the future, reflecting bitterly on her the loss of her friends.

What If…
Jumping to a lighter note with some pop rock of the deceptively cheerful type: “Shouldn’t be this hard to miss you / Can you see that I’ve got issues?” In this song, Twilight hatches the idea of living in a dream, a fake reality with greener pastures, which will be the album’s main plot point.

Wonderful Lie
The role of Twilight Sparkle is played by Koa, and altogether she’s appearing on 6 of the 15 tracks. After the initial monologue we’re treated to a prog rock sort of instrumental sequence, as if we’re ready to enter this self-made dream world with futuristic zeal. There’s parallels with The Pink Side Of The Moon here, compare the monologue to A Party Without Me! and the instrumentals to Nebula Skater.

Everything Is Fine
The monologue’s last phrase leads right into the next song. If we compare to Pink Side again, this would be Here On The Moon and Galactic Getaway: Twilight has committed to her dream world, and things seem to be working out—initially. But those ignored problems will come back to bite her.

Nowhere To Go
Settling into ‘comfy’ country music for a bit, 4EverfreeBrony performs a duet with the wonderful voice of Luna Jax. While this song is nominally about depression, it’s arguably the most (genuinely) uplifting song on the album.

Pretend
Hiding from reality has started doing more bad than good, and Twilight is now finding seeds of doubt in her worldview. Nevertheless, she’ll carry on and more actively pretend everything is alright. The tune is bittersweet and tragic: we know she can do better, but she’s not yet ready.

Time On My Hooves
First released on Ponies At Dawn: Survivors, Time On My Hooves brings us firmly in blues territory, with an awesome performance of Canto Acrylic. The fakeness of her world has become palpable, and it’s getting on her nerves. In fact its very vividness has become something of a curse: “One thousand years on the moon / At least you’ve got your solitude”.

Stranger In My Life
The annoyances of the last song have reached a boiling point, and so now we’re in a full-on existential crisis. Hard-hitting lyrics and extended guitar solos make this one of the heaviest songs on the album.

Mr. Afterlife
There must be something that can be done, right? Maybe you can bargain with Afterlife himself, and somehow get your mortality back? That’s what Twilight is now after. Like the previous, this song is also carried by intricate guitar solos, but the heaviness of the last track is accentuated with a near-desperate impulse to turn things around.

Worth It
A short reprise of The Same Sky, reaching the musical equivalent of depression.

Now I Understand
For the last handful of tracks, we get to hear Koa again. In an emotional lament, she realizes no amount of denial or evasion can make things better and she just has to reckon with her losses.

Save Myself
Twilight has surrendered to her grief. Suspended between the memories of her friends and a possible future of eventual recovery, she cannot expect help from outside unless she saves herself first. The song is apparently a spiritual successor to Save Me, using the same musical motif.

Here I Am
At long last, our hero has recollected herself. This song seems compare to Wonderful Lie earlier on the album. But whereas that song channeled its energy into creating her dream world and avoiding her problems, this one has her face the world with newfound courage, at the closing part of the grief process.

Exit
Self-describing, a short transition that repeats the tune of Here I Am on piano.

Our Lives
We’re now ready to move on. 4EverfreeBrony and Koa close off the album together with a tender duet. Unlike the final songs of Pink Side (Right Here, note its titular similarity to Here I Am) or Hoping (Carry On), there’s no big happy ending, but instead a melancholic and resolved note.

This is with little doubt 4EverfreeBrony’s darkest album, and that makes it difficult to listen on repeat. I find it easy to overthink the notion that Twilight is immortal, and through the ages, even the memories of her destiny-bound friends will eventually fade in a distant past.

Don’t forget to support 4EverfreeBrony through Patreon and/or buy the CD via Bandcamp. Also check out his X or Bluesky to stay up to date!

– DuxTape