Black Lung – Forever Beyond

 

 

Black Lung – Forever Beyond
Magnetic Eye Records – 2026
Rock, Prog, Psych
Rated: *****

The American outfit Black Lung released their self-titled debut EP back in 2014 and followed that one up with two albums that matched that first release in quality before blowing all of that out of the water with the brilliant 2022 album Dark Waves. And since the beginning of March there’s a new addition called Forever Beyond, an album that proves to be even more beautiful than all that came before. The psychedelic rock continues to drift ever closer to the sound of All Them Witches, but where that band leans into an increasingly oppressive atmosphere, Black Lung instead expands outwards… Crafting something wide, grandiose, and filled with sweeping gestures. Even when the themes touch on fascism, blind nationalism, and the suffocating machinery of capitalist oligarchy, the music remains strangely alluring: seductive, provocative, and at times even dreamlike.

At moments, the band veers into blues-inflected passages, or even allows hints of metal to surface, but always the result is the same, an invitation to lose yourself, to smile quietly, and to drift into reverie. Added to this is the remarkable voice of vocalist Dave Cavalier, which arrives precisely when needed to deepen the emotional resonance of each passage. The result is an album that stands as one of the finest you are likely to hear this year. Thematically, it may speak to the current condition of human society, and in doing so perhaps achieves a kind of  timelessness. In any case, it all feels as though Forever Beyond has been made for eternity…

(Written by JK)

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