Record #331: Forever Losing Sleep – I Lost Myself Again (2014)

One of the more interesting parts of the recent pop punk/emo revival is what other sounds have been appropriated from other scenes. Pity Sex is rife with shoegaze’s jangling walls of sound. La Dispute has the occasional jazz chords.

In this case, Forever Losing Sleep marries its SDRE-patented soft/loud dynamics and emotive whisper-to-scream vocals with post rock’s ambience. 
My band ( @wearespaceships ) played with them last night, and three of the four giant pedalboards were outfitted with a Strymon Big Sky reverb processor, which were used to great effect in the sparser passages and crushing heaviness alike in a way that is more Russian Circles than Brand New.

Their live show show is absolutely spellbinding, and the record delivers on that. The production manages to capture every nuance performed by each of the six members as they fiddle with knobs or manipulate feedback without sounding canned. The songs are sequenced perfectly, combining together in a well paced whole. These aren’t only songs as much as they are movements in a larger, masterfully constructed composition.