The title of She Wants Revenge’s latest album, ‘This Is Forever,’ is almost like a play on words. With songs about betrayal, lies and deceit, the album is hardly about loving, romantic relationships.
Revenge’s second album in just over a year, ‘This is Forever’ is proof that not all bands have to dive into a sophomore slump. Following in the footsteps of their dark-wave forefathers, Depeche Mode, who the band recently toured with, this album is loaded with dark music, laced with the droning nuances of lead vocalist Justin Warfield.
Warfield and band member, Adam ’12’ Bravin, hit the studio in January to start recording their latest album.
‘This record contains a lot of hidden things, and a lot of touchstones in life that had a huge influence on us,’ Bravin said in an interview with Billboard. ‘We based some of the visual aspects of our videos and some of the songs on things happening around us … some movies, some people.’
Bravin and Warfield must get their inspiration from dimly lit, crowded bar scenes, seeing as a majority of the songs on the album pertain to estranged late night relationships between men and women.
‘True Romance,’ the hit track off the album and by far the best, takes you on a journey through the tainted eyes of a man desperately in love with a girl who he knows ‘never cared at all.’
The seventh track on the album, ‘She Will Always Be a Broken Girl,’ takes’ a look into the mind of a distraught girl who struggles with an inner battle to stay home or go out and face the man she loves, who fails to notice her.
Warfield sings in a low monotone voice, which he uses throughout the album accompanied by Bravin on the synthesizer and drums blending together to create a menacing sound that will leave you humming the songs over and over for hours.
The song spirals to an end, echoing ‘This might be the time to break down,’ as a guitar-synthesizer melody transitions into the next track, ‘This is the End.’ The tempo picks up and switches back into the mind of a man, once again, tormented by mixed emotions.
Bravin and Warfield play a fighting melody between guitar and keyboard, eliciting a strong feeling of being at a club, to the point where you can almost feel the smell of alcohol and cigarettes creeping into your nose.
If you made it to the end of the album without having to stop halfway through to go grab a beer, smoke a cigarette or make a promiscuous phone call, or if you’ve just seen the video for ‘True Romance,’ then you know that the last track ‘Rachael’ ties the entire set together.
The lyrics for ‘Rachael’ are cleverly written, leading you to believe that she is the girl Revenge used as inspiration for this album. In the video for ‘True Romance,’ a girl uses a love serum to trick the man she likes into falling in love with her.
After the man takes a drink, he is thrown into a delusional state causing him to see subliminal messages of the name Rachael flash before him on a television screen.
Whatever your forte, ‘This is Forever’ is an album you do not want to miss. From the heavily affected drone of Wakefield’s voice to the addicting beat of the keyboard, synthesizer and guitar, there is not one song on this album that will disappoint.
