There’s something immediately satisfying about a heavy rock song that refuses to sound too clean. “Forever Lost,” the latest single from Southampton outfit Blacklight Vice, understands that sometimes the little imperfections are exactly what make a recording feel alive.
The track marks the band’s first collaboration with new vocalist Drew Knowles and a clear step toward heavier territory. Recorded at The Ranch Studios in Hampshire with producer Matt Janke, “Forever Lost” sounds less like a carefully sterilized studio product and more like a band being captured in the middle of something loud, messy and very real.
You can hear it in the details. Fingers scrape across guitar strings. The room seems to breathe around the instruments. Amplifiers crackle and feedback naturally. None of it feels like something that needed to be scrubbed out in the editing process. Instead, these sounds give the track an almost physical quality, as if Blacklight Vice are playing directly in front of you.
“Forever Lost” bursts forth with an almost primal, subterranean-dwelling rhythm and grungy guitar riff which is followed quickly by the arrival of the full, charging band in full and potent rhythm and stride. The drumming is impressive in its heft and the guitars apply distortion with a level of taste such that the song doesn’t drown under the noise. If anything, the overall arrangement of the piece has a slight looseness which serves it exceptionally well as it comes with an unpredictable nature sorely lacking in over-processed contemporary rock fare.
Knowles cuts a similarly convincing performance throughout, snarling during the denser, harder parts and finding a certain groove and rhythm in melodic passages. With room for the vocals to operate, he avoids muffling the song’s impact and the result is a song that remains sufficiently angsty throughout and yet feels anything but unfocused.
That matters because “Forever Lost” isn’t simply interested in sounding heavy. Beneath the distortion is a fairly human story about reaching a point wherein continuing to live under someone or something else’s negative influence is no longer an option. The heaviness becomes part of that narrative: frustration turning into resistance, darkness giving way to the possibility of finding purpose again.
The song also benefits from its pacing. Instead of maintaining the same level of aggression throughout, Blacklight Vice allows the intensity to rise and fall. A more restrained passage creates tension before the band eventually lets loose again, making the louder sections hit harder.
For a first release with Knowles, “Forever Lost” makes a convincing case for this new chapter of Blacklight Vice; one that shows the band capable of unleashing hell that is truly eternal.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
