After having enjoyed so much Even When We Fall Apart (published by Unknown Pleasures), we were really looking forward to listening to the last Chemical Waves’ s album. Marco Cattani’s project has just released Lasting Forever, an album, again, full of collaborations: in the new Chemical Waves’s work we can find artists that are getting quite famous now, like Pedro Code from IAMTHESHADOW and even a Garaje’s favorite such as The Sea At Midnight, but also L’Avenir or Ill Humans. In the interview that we had with Lume, published only in Spanish in March, he said that Goth music looks for transcendence, and that’s the aim of this record, to include some songs that are going to remain in our hearts and souls, not to be forgotten after a few minutes, an album made to last forever. This piece of Time can be bought and listened to here and the cassette version can be bought through the label ScentAir Records.
If the instrumental “Blindfolded” was the intro to the previous record, this time we have the solemn “Nocturnal” opening the album. We continue with “Slit”, released as the first single and a great darkwave track recorded with the collaboration of Ill Humans, whose vocal style can, this time, remind you of She Past Away. The Darkness continues with “To The Deep”, with Pedro Code from IAMTHESHADOW, one of the new Portuguese projects that has looked at the abysm of life in a more accomplished way. In this song, the musicians manage to get a classic sound like that of Fields of the Nephilim or The Mission, in a composition that would fit perfectly in a “best of” both bands. “Chains” with Gentle Ropes from Ucrania is a mysterious track, close to the ethereal genre and extraordinarily hypnotic. We continue with “Ghost and a Memory” with the voice of L’Avenir, a project of Jason Sloan that already collaborated in the previous album. For this occasion, we can feel him singing melancholy over a martial rhythm in another highlight of the album.
Pedro Code returns in “My Knees”, with a long introduction that manages to create a great atmosphere where Pedro burns in with his grave voice delivering another great performance. After the instrumental interlude that shares not only the title of the album but also the same solemn property, we find a song sang by The Sea At Midnight, a project that we have already recommended here at the Garaje. “Statues” is the most luminous moment of the album, with a style closer to synth pop and a chorus that stands out. A composition that proves that it the melody is quite good, you don’t really need much more. In “Four Years” collaborates Kiss of the Whip from Baltimore in a passionate and melancholic song. And in a similar mood, “Until the end of time”, another evocative instrumental, closes the album.
The digital version of the album includes a bonus track titled “Strip” while the cassette version also includes two more songs: “Hidden Kisses” and an alternative demo version of “Statues”.
